Public Human Resource Management Research Articles

HRM practices in the public service: a measurement model

Purpose Considering the significant increase in researchers’ interest in human resource management (HRM) in the public sector domain, this study aims to focus on producing a scale of HRM practices customized for the context of public organizations. Design/methodology/approach Experts and semantic analysis were performed for the scale development (qualitative stage), and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis through structural equation modeling was conducted for the scale validation (quantitative stage). Findings The public HRM practices scale (public HRMPS) is composed of 19 items, distributed along four factors/dimensions, named training, development and education; relationship; work conditions; and competency and performance appraisal. The scale showed evidence of internal and construct validity (convergent, divergent, criterion-related and discriminant), as well as reliability and content validity. Research limitations/implications The public HRMPS can be applied in relational studies to test structural models of prediction, mediation and moderation to evaluate relationships with organizational behavior variables, such as leader-members exchange, engagement at work, life quality at work and well-being at work, among others. Practical implications The public HRMPS may also serve as a useful diagnostic tool for the decision-making process made by public managers so they can promote a strategic, evidence-based HRM. Furthermore, the transforming role of strategic HRM can be operationalized by adopting practices gathered in the public HRMPS, advancing toward new HRM strategies to promote healthier and more productive work environments. Social implications Healthier and more productive environments translate into real impacts for society, the first beneficiary of public services with more quality, efficiency and accountability. Originality/value The public HRMPS is the first attempt to produce an operationally valid and reliable measure to evaluate strategic HRM practices, responding to calls in the literature concerning the need for an integrated, comprehensive and customized HRM practices scale for the public service context.

Human Resource Management Performance Assessment and Enhancement in Public Community Governance

Abstract Human resource management is a more important part of public sector internal management. Based on the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, and significance of indicator construction, this paper constructs a human resource management performance assessment model in public community governance. It introduces the entropy weight method and TOPSIS method to comprehensively and objectively calculate the degree of influence of each evaluation indicator on public human resource management performance. Meanwhile, taking the data of public community governance in County S as an example, the vertical and horizontal comparisons of public human resource management performance are carried out to explore the corresponding public human resource management performance improvement strategies. The results of the study show that in the public human resource management of County S city, the weight of the character factor indicator is the largest (0.3801), and that of the diligence element is the smallest (0.0936), indicating that the character factor has the greatest influence on the human resource management performance of public community governance in County S city. In order to improve performance, it is recommended to promote the optimization of the management system by combining the performance management experience, as well as to continuously innovate the human resource incentive methods through multiple research.

Essential but Ignored: Including Blue-Collar Government Workers Into Human Resource Management Research

Routine, manual, or blue-collar workers play a substantial role in delivering public services, especially at the local level. Despite their prevalence, scholars know little about the specifics of managing these human resources. This contribution challenges common stereotypes about blue-collar workers and argue a truly inclusive knowledge base on public- sector human resource management (HRM) must include these workers. Building upon the job characteristics model and the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model of HRM that links ability-, motivation-, and opportunity- HRM practices to job performance, a research agenda is put forward aiming to better understand blue-collar workers in government. Researchers are challenged to study blue-collar workers in government to truly construct both inclusive workplaces and an inclusive knowledge base in public personnel or public HRM research.

The Effect of Perceived Organizational and Supervisory Support on Employee Engagement During COVID-19 Crises: Mediating Effect of Work-Life Balance Policy.

This article examines how organizational and supervisory supports, directly and indirectly, impact employee engagement in U.S. federal agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study applies two analysis models for two different sample groups: federal workers who were required to be physically present at a worksite during the pandemic and those who were not required to do so. Drawing from the sampling frame comprised of "permanently employed, non-political, non-seasonal, full- or part-time federal employees" in pay status as of October 2019, the findings from the U.S. Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey 2020 indicate that organizational and supervisory supports directly impact employee engagement regardless of employees' work arrangements. However, work engagement is not increased by organizational and supervisory supports that actively encourage employees to use conventional incentives such as work-life balance policies. At the organizational level, this study suggests the need to redesign strategies to motivate public agents to engage in the agency's mission because conventional and systemic employee support may be ineffective as currently designed. Overall, this study sheds more light on existing studies of public human resource management by examining employee engagement according to work arrangements during the pandemic.

Fostering Innovative Behavior of Millennial Public Employee Through Leadership Styles and Organizational Trust

The connection between leadership styles and employees’ innovative behavior has been widely investigated. However, none of the studies examine employees’ organizational trust in the public sector. Based on the social exchange theory, this study fills the gap by examining the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership, organizational trust, and innovative behavior of millennial public employees. It also explored the effect of transformational and transactional leadership on innovative behavior mediated by organizational trust. A cross-sectional design was applied by distributing questionnaires to 320 public servants studying at the Universitas Indonesia to obtain their responses. The data were then analyzed using a partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results showed that transformational and transactional leadership affect the innovative behavior of millennial public employees mediated by organizational trust. This study enriches the knowledge regarding innovative behavior and contributes to public human resources management by enhancing organizational trust.

Recruitment and Selection in the Public Sector: Do Rules Shape Managers’ Practices?

This study investigates the effects of optimal rule control on recruitment and selection practices in public organizations. Although rules are argued to constrain organizational practices and organizational performance, there is limited knowledge about the relationship of optimal rule control to recruitment and selection practices from a managerial perspective. By conducting a study with survey responses from 1,000 public frontline managers, combined with administrative data, this article investigates how optimal rule control is associated with the formation of recruitment objectives and selections based on values and cultural fit. Findings indicate a positive relationship between optimal rule control and the formation of recruitment objectives and selections based on fit. Unexpectedly, managerial tenure does not seem to moderate the association between optimal rule control and recruitment and selection practices. The study contributes to the public human resource management literature by focusing on the influence of organizational rules on human resource practices.

The Reform of Human Resource System in the Public Sector under the New Public Management System

The work presented in this paper focuses on New Public Management (NPM) and the public human resource management system. New Public Management (NPM), which has been used in the West for a number of years, is currently being implemented in China to manage various government departments. China is aware of the benefits that NPM may bring to the management of the government. In the context of New Public Management, departments of public human resources will also need to undergo transformations in order to improve talent management and recruitment efforts. This paper identifies the problems with public sector human resource management, including but not limited to the following: the focus of Chinese public sector personnel on achieving public sector goals at the expense of personal goals; the unfairness of recruitment principles due to human relations, which is not conducive to the rational allocation of talent and leads to brain drain; and the outdated management style, problematic promotion system, and inadequate incentives in China's public administration. Increasing the effectiveness of the performance evaluation process is one way to solve these shortcomings. These deficiencies can be rectified by enhancing the performance appraisal mechanism, establishing a flexible system for workers, and aiming for maximum efficiency in order to improve the difficulties in the public sector. This paper offers some references for the improvement of talent management in public organizations.

Artificial Intelligence and Public Human Resource Management: Questions for Research and Practice

Advances in big data and artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning (ML) and other cognitive computing technologies (CCT), have facilitated the development of human resource management (HRM) applications promising greater efficiency, economy, and effectiveness for public administration (Maciejewski, 2017) and better alignment with the modern, constantly evolving employment landscape. It is not surprising then that these advanced technologies are featured in proposals to elevate the government’s human capital. This article discusses current and emerging AI applications that stand to impact most (if not all) HRM functions and their prospects for elevating public human capital. In particular, this article (a) reviews the current state of the field with regards to AI and HRM, (b) discusses AI’s current and potential impact upon the core functional areas of HRM, (c) identifies the main challenges AI poses to such concerns as public values, equity, and traditional merit system principles, and (d) concludes by identifying research needs for public HRM scholarship and practice that highlight the growing role and influence of AI applications in the workplace.

The Emotional Toll of the COVID-19 Crisis on Local Government Workers

Despite the emotional intensity that accompanies crises, rarely is emotional labor explicitly discussed as a required aspect of crisis response work. We explore the emotional toll of COVID-19 crisis on local government employees. We introduce a dynamic mixed-methods approach to the study of emotional labor during times of crisis and highlight the utility of diary research designs in public human resource management scholarship. By combining waves of survey data, semi-structured interviews, and daily diary prompts, we provide evidence of how changes in workload, exogenously imposed fears, and emotional spillover blur the work-home boundaries of local government officials during the pandemic. We also show how isolation from peers and the public can lead to conflict and search for social support from both external and internal sources. We highlight how the application of the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory gives insight to the burnout and disengagement faced by local government employees during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order.

Public service motivation in the Chinese context: Theory construction and workplace consequences

<p id="p00005">Crystalizing the consensual notions of public service motivation (PSM) in the Chinese context serves as a requisite condition for China to forge a committed public workforce and improve its public human resource management strategies. Existing research on PSM, albeit copious, overlooks its massive conceptual divergence between Chinese and Western contexts. Moreover, current PSM studies have paid scant attention to the micro-intervention mechanisms of PSM and its negative behavioral impacts. This research hence aims to develop an integrated PSM theory in the Chinese context through investigating its core components, activation mechanism and workplace consequences. Specifically, this study conceptualizes PSM as a mixed-motives construct. By virtue of a grounded theory approach, we will then identify the core components of PSM among front-line employees and subsequently develop a measurement scale fitting the Chinese context. Through the lens of micro-interventions, additionally, this study will examine the effects of beneficiary contacts, self-advocacy, and idea reflections on activating public servants’ PSM. Finally, this study will investigate the mechanisms underlying both desirable and undesirable effects of PSM on public employees. In a nutshell, the furtherance and completion of this study will not only echo an enduring scholarly call for the establishment of localized PSM theories cast against the Chinese background, but also generate ample evidence-based policy implications about the approaches through which the work motivation and job performance of Chinese public employees can be viably augmented.

Putting the Humanity Back Into Public Human Resources Management: A Narrative Inquiry Analysis of Public Service in the Time of COVID-19

Amid a global pandemic, unprecedented numbers of citizens relied on essential public employees as lifelines for their health, safety, and connectedness to the broader community. These public servants worked tirelessly through collective trauma to ensure their neighbors had what was needed to maintain some semblance of a routine in an otherwise unpredictable environment. This article uses narrative inquiry to examine the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic disruption on the public sector workplace, the quality of work life, and to investigate how employees coped during the crisis. Our research reports on interviews with 43 front-line and behind-the-scenes public employees who describe how they coped, maintained their public service motivation, and worked through increased demands for emotional labor in this new work-life environment. The findings suggest the need for human resources policies that allow for a flexible, reflective, holistic, and person-centered approach.

Perceived Red Tape and Recruitment and Selection Practices in the Public Sector

This study investigates the effects of perceived red tape on recruitment and selection practices in public organizations. Although, red tape is argued to constrain organizational practices and thus organizational performance, it has not yet been analyzed whether red tape is associated with recruitment and selection practices. By conducting a study with survey responses from 1,000 public frontline leaders combined with administrative data, this paper investigates how perceived red tape is associated with the formation of recruitment objectives and selections based on values and cultural fit. Findings indicate a negative relationship between perceived red tape and the formation of recruitment objectives and selections based on fit. Furthermore, findings indicate that leadership tenure does not moderate the association between red tape and recruitment and selection practices. The study contributes to the public human resource management literature by focusing on the negative influence of perceived red tape on HR practices.

Ethics in the public human resource management course: An integrated and case approach to decision making

ABSTRACT With a solid foundation in public administration since the 1980s, few could argue that ethics is not an important aspect of a public service education. Yet, in many public human resource management (HRM) or personnel courses, ethics is relegated to one class discussion. In this study, we contend that ethics is best understood when situated within the context of other approaches to public administration. In supplying this revised theoretical and fourth approach to Rosenbloom’s three approaches to public administration, we also contend that ethics, as an equally important approach, is best utilized in the public HRM course when done so consistently and frequently using decision-making cases. First, we will explain the addition of ethics as an approach for analysis and introduce a decision-making case. Next, we discuss our research findings from a survey that assessed student responses to the decision-making case from two different MPA programs.

Priority directions of human resources management improving in the field of public service of Ukraine

The article is devoted to the consideration of modernization of public service and human resources management in public authorities and substantiates the priority areas of improvement of human resources management in the field of public service of Ukraine. It is determined that outdated forms, methods and technologies of personnel management and rather slow transition from the clerical model of personnel management to democratic forms and methods of work with personnel remain are retained in the field of public service. It were analyzed the main forms of social and psychological support of human resources management in the field of public service. It is determined that the institutional capacity of personnel management services and their ability to ensure, in most cases, the effective implementation of strategic human resource management functions remains insufficient today. A new organizational structure of the strategic human resources management service in public authorities is proposed, which should include units on human resources management strategy (policy), selection, accounting, adaptation, development, evaluation, motivation, acmeological support, labor relations and salaries of public servants. It is highlighted that such system should be based on the general principles of human resource management in the public service, which determine the content of its elements and the choice of specific tools, instruments, forms, methods and technologies of human resource management. The particular attention was paid to the fact that the proposed approach should be implemented on an updated attitude to the role and place of socio-psychological components in human resource management in the field of public service. It is substantiated that in order to create a professional, politically neutral, honest and effective public service, along with improving the legislative support of human resources management in the public service, it is necessary to develop institutional capacity and ensure consistency in implementing of new principles of an effective state personnel policy.

Designing the model of Iranian public human resource management improving the indicators of good governance

Designing the model of Iranian public human resource management improving the indicators of good governance

The Future of Public Human Resource Management

The Future of Public Human Resource Management

The Fusion of Competence and Integrity Problems in Transformation of Public Human Resources Management Model

The limited quality of human resource management in the Biak Numfor Regency in Papua requires fundamental transformation. Based on available data, the determinants that reject the transformation process include two categories, namely, lack of competence and integrity. This study uses a post-positivistic interpretive phenomenological philosophy that emphasizes the meaning and descriptive process to understand the process of transformation. Local government leaders who are not trustworthy in applying the concept of human resource management based on the Cakar thesis latently significantly affect the integrity of the domestic apparatus. That has an impact on the lack of credibility of the Biak Regional Human Resources Development Agency. In short, increasing the competency of human resources as an effort to produce adequate human resources in this region becomes an important key for successful transformation.

Retention of Generation Y in Hungarian Public Service

The article discusses challenges of retaining young people in public service. Is it possible to have a new generation of public servants, who choose this profession even for a lifetime? In search of the answer literature of generation theories, generation management and retention management is reviewed and influencing factors of a generation membership and retention are synthesized. Empirical research results of a survey with over 1300 responders among Hungarian public servants are shown from which an identity profile of Generation Y public servants is sketched and proposals are made for long-term retention strategies. Outcome of the research suggests generational approach to be introduced in public service human resource management in order to support more effective retention management and to better understand possible generational differences instead of relying on false assumptions.

Administración de salud pública y gestión de recursos humanos de la Microred Centenario de Abancay

Administración de salud pública y gestión de recursos humanos de la Microred Centenario de Abancay

Exploring the motivational bases of public mission-driven professions using a sequential-explanatory design

ABSTRACT This study disentangles the motivational forces that drive the preferences of public sector professionals engaging in mission-driven jobs. Building on self-determination theory, two discrete choice experiments and a qualitative inquiry show that nurses preferred jobs with less overtime, higher salary, visibility for the profession, higher social impact, numerous and frequent contacts with patients, and higher autonomy. Results also highlighted that managing more subordinates may not be unconditionally desirable. Implications stretch beyond nursing to other public professions in crisis and discuss the role of public human resource management in the broader human resource management literature.