Human Resource Management Journal最新文献

This study aims to shed light on the dual impact of appraisals of pandemic-induced job stressors on employee knowledge sharing and hiding behaviors. Drawing on the transactional attribution model, we hypothesize that employee perceptions of supervisor compassionate and self-serving behavior would positively mediate the impact of employee challenge and hindrance appraisals of pandemic-induced job stressors on employee knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding, respectively. Moreover, stressor appraisals are expected to interact with employee attributions of supervisor compassionate and self-serving motives in shaping perceptions of supervisor compassionate and self-serving behavior, respectively. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two independent studies—a three-wave full longitudinal study with 230 employees from UK and U.S. firms during the first COVID-19 outbreak and a randomized scenario-based experiment with 210 U.S. employees. Cross-lagged structural equation analyses, analyses of variance, and path analyses fully supported our predictions, thus providing a nuanced understanding of the role of perceived supervisor behavior and attributions of supervisor motives in accounting for the differential effects of employee appraisals of pandemic-induced job stressors on knowledge behaviors.

The exploding employee demands on mental health services and the under-utilised employee assistance programmes (EAPs) stand in stark contrast. Despite widespread coverage and awareness of EAPs, their low utilisation rates have marginalised them in organisations' human resource strategies. This study explores why employees are resistant to using EAPs from the perspective of dynamic contention, drawing on insights from labour process theory. Through a critical review of the literature, it yields a picture of neither perfect managerial control nor condition-altering resistance in EAPs. In addition, despite their potential to mediate between labour and management, EAPs often align too closely with management, fail to provide avenues for employee input, and struggle to adapt to changing work dynamics. The study concludes with suggestions for effectively leveraging EAPs' constructive broker role to strategically bridge labour and management and address their under-utilisation and marginalisation.

Recently, scholars in strategic human resource management have attended to internal dynamics that give rise to variability within organizations. Given that workplace politics is an inherent and inevitable part of organizational life, this study investigates the interplay of organizational politics (OP) and an individual's political skill (PS) in shaping the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employees' performance behaviors. Utilizing multilevel, multisource data collected in two phases from 187 employees nested within 47 workgroups, we explore cross-level three-way interaction effects involving group-level HPWS, OP, and individual-level PS on task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. The results reveal that the positive impact of HPWS is more pronounced among individuals with strong PS when OP is low. Conversely, in high OP environments, the HPWS–performance relationship becomes negative for those with poor PS, while individuals with strong PS continue to exhibit positive outcomes. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the intricate and nuanced nature of the HPWS–performance relationship.

Social capital plays a critical role in newcomer adjustment. However, research is lacking regarding the effective mobilization of social capital, in terms of how different information network characteristics jointly influence newcomer adjustment. Drawing on the literature on social networks and newcomer adjustment, we distinguish two crucial processes of newcomer adjustment, namely assimilation and learning, and propose that the extent to which newcomers' number of information ties influences the assimilation and learning processes depends on the frequency of social interactions (i.e., tie strength) and the status of network contacts (i.e., network status). To test our hypotheses, four waves of data were collected from a sample of 178 organizational newcomers. The results suggest that when network status is low, mobilizing a large information network reduces newcomers' organizational identification (an assimilation indicator), which in turn reduces their job satisfaction. Conversely, mobilizing a large information network with weak ties enhances newcomers' role clarity (a learning indicator) and in turn boosts their task performance. Overall, this study highlights the importance of considering tie strength and network status together with the number of information ties in efforts to facilitate newcomer adjustment.

Drawing upon social identification theory and stakeholder theory, the current study examines the contextual effect of job insecurity on the indirect relationship between general corporate social responsibility facilitation-human resource management (HRM) and employee job engagement through the mediation of organizational pride. Our analysis of a two-wave dataset with a sample of 255 full-time employees in the banking sector reveals that job insecurity negatively moderates the impact of general CSR-facilitation HRM on organizational pride, which in turn is positively related to employee job engagement. This study advances the socially responsible HRM literature by providing insights into the underlying mechanisms and the contextual conditions under which general CSR-facilitation HRM influences employee workplace outcomes in the presence of conflicting interests among stakeholders.

Corporate layoffs are a globally prolific organisational activity, but little is known about how industry-level employment loss or gain impacts firm-level layoff implementation. Grounded in institutional theory, this study posits that firms in industries experiencing employment decline align with a cost-containment approach, while firms in industries experiencing employment growth focus on social exchange theory when executing employee layoffs. Analysis of 573 mass layoffs from March 2013 to May 2019 compared downsizing scope (layoff severity and frequency), explanations, alternatives, advance notice, and firm characteristics (unionisation and firm size) in employment gain versus loss industries. The findings indicate that meaningful differences exist. Firms operating in employment loss industries implement layoffs focused on cost-containment, including less severe layoffs, less extensive but more demand-decline focused explanations, and use more cost-reduction layoff alternatives, when compared to layoffs in employment gaining industries. Firms operating in industries experiencing growth execute layoffs in a manner that maintains the social exchange expectations between employee-employer. In addition, firms in declining industries are more likely to be unionised and larger than firms in growing industries. This research helps reconcile divergent layoff perspectives by considering how variations in external factors impact corporate layoffs.

Being on a career plateau is widely regarded as an undesirable career experience characterised by a lack of individual proactivity, ability, or opportunity for promotion. In this paper, we present an alternative view arguing that some employees may choose to plateau their careers and deliberately forego opportunities for hierarchical progression. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 75 law enforcement officers in the US and Australia, we explore why they declined a promotion opportunity or elected not to apply for promotion. Drawing on social cognitive career theory, we develop a provisional taxonomy characterised by individual proactivity: self-initiated and self-resigned career plateaus. Specifically, we report how the decision to remain on either of these career plateaus is informed by either the low valence accorded to a promoted position or, paradoxically, the reduced self-efficacy in navigating what is viewed as a flawed promotion system.

Leveraging Weiner's attribution theory of intrapersonal motivation at the micro level and varieties of capitalism theory at the macro level, we conduct a multi-country and cross-level study examining whether individuals' career goals (i.e., perceived importance of learning and development), behaviors (i.e., proactive career behaviors), and outcomes (i.e., perceived employability) as well as the relationships between these variables, differ between different market economies. We challenge extant literature that focuses on the agentic role of individuals and understates the role of context (i.e., market economy influence) in an individual's career development. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we draw on a survey of 15,201 individuals between 2014 and 2016 from 22 countries representing four different varieties of capitalism. The results showed that workers in hierarchical (HME) and Mediterranean (MME) market economies systematically differed from individuals in coordinated (CME) and liberal (LME) market economies in proactive career behaviors and perceived employability. Moreover, while the positive relationship between perceived importance of learning and development and proactive career behaviors was stronger in CMEs and LMEs compared to HMEs and MMEs, the positive association between proactive career behaviors and perceived employability was weaker. Our study bridges the micro-macro gap in career studies, adding new insights into the ongoing conversation of contextual influence in individuals' career development.