Human Resource Management Journal最新文献

Numerous studies have documented the existence of legitimacy challenges that emerging markets multinational enterprises (EMNEs) face in foreign markets due to their national origin. However, there is limited understanding of the EMNEs' strategic responses to offset these country-of-origin related disadvantages. In this study, we conceptualize gender diversity management (GDM) as a strategic response of EMNEs to mitigate the legitimacy challenges in developed countries. Specifically, we argue that emerging markets firms increase women's representation in top management teams to overcome the liability of origin. We use legitimacy perspective to examine the effect of pervasiveness of institutional voids in emerging markets on women's representation in top management teams of EMNEs. Based on subsidiary-level panel data of EMNEs from 20 emerging markets operating in developed countries from 2010 to 2019, our results show strong and robust evidence indicating that the pervasiveness of institutional voids at home is positively related to women's representation in top management teams of emerging markets firms. Additional analyses demonstrate that duration in the foreign market, market-seeking intent, and state ownership further magnify this effect. These findings, besides significantly adding to the international human resource management literature, have managerial implications.

This paper provides the first nationally representative assessment of intrinsic job quality in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). We propose a workforce re-contracting perspective, which views LBOs as having negative implications for some aspects of intrinsic job quality (job demands) but positive implications for others (job resources), and employee wellbeing and affective outcomes that are no different than in comparable non-LBOs. Our empirical findings support this perspective. Nevertheless, we find some evidence that certain LBO types have more negative implications for specific elements of intrinsic job quality than others. However, our overall findings contribute towards studies suggesting that the impact of LBOs on employees is modest, while also highlighting the varying implications of different LBO types for employees.

Scholars and practitioners have long emphasised the importance of employees speaking up about workplace issues. Yet, voice research remains divided on fundamental questions such as underlying purpose. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources Model, this study offers an integrative perspective, building on the idea that the interests of employees and managers are distinct concerning the purpose of voice. This article draws on responses from a cross-sectional national online survey distributed by YouGov, with a survey design that ensured that only those employed within an organisational setting with a reporting structure would be included in the data. The sample size used for the analysis (N = 1858) was representative of the UK workforce regarding gender, full- or part-time work status, organisation size and industry. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis provides empirical evidence of two alternative and distinct voice forms: organisational and employee-focused. Results show that while organisational voice is associated with significantly higher innovative behaviour and higher levels of burnout, employee-focused voice is significantly and negatively associated with employee burnout. Lastly, our analysis reveals that while the total effect of organisational voice on burnout is positive, employee-focused voice, partially mediating the organisational voice-burnout relationship, exerts a countervailing effect, lowering burnout. Accordingly, organisations are advised to promote both voice forms, given their unique, positive effects, first on the employee (ameliorating burnout) and second on strategically important outcomes (innovative behaviours). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Given its importance to organizational development, interest in exploring the antecedents of employee proactive behavior has grown exponentially. Moving beyond the traditional managerial mindset, we highlight the role of Chinese enterprise union practices in fueling proactive behavior. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we argue that Chinese enterprise union practices can exert a downward influence on proactive behavior, and critically, this cross-level effect can be accounted for through perceived insider status and affective commitment. Multilevel structural equation modeling based on a sample of 433 employees from 43 enterprises supported the hypotheses. This study responds to previous calls for action to commence a multidisciplinary perspective to explore predictors of proactive behavior, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the distinctive characteristics and unique effects of trade unions in China. It also presents implications for broader union research and workplace partnership initiatives aimed at promoting better labor relationships.

In just over a decade two global crises have created significant instability across the world and plunged many national economies into recession. While studies of HRM during economic downturns are limited, the global impact of COVID-19 on employment adds impetus to the debate. Though downsizing and mass layoffs attract most attention, redundancies are just one potential response to challenging economic conditions, and various other employment adjustments might be viewed as complements or alternatives to workforce reductions. However, little is known about the implementation of HR practices or enactment of HR strategies during recession. Drawing upon 56 in-depth interviews, this article presents three case studies of recessionary restructuring in British manufacturing firms. The cases share a concern with mitigating redundancies and highlight the importance of actor agency as well as institutional and organisational context in shaping restructuring outcomes. The article contributes to HR theory regarding HRM in recession and employment restructuring.

Recruitment is one of the most important human resource functions for organizational success and survival. While organizations increasingly use headhunters to recruit employees, little research has focused on client-headhunter relations. This paper draws on agency theory and interviews with 130 contingency-based headhunters and corporate clients to examine clients' opportunistic behaviors and how headhunters sought to mitigate these opportunistic behaviors. Our analysis shows that clients used several headhunters in search assignments, negotiated and refused to pay placement fees, contacted candidates directly, changed search criteria and terminated search assignments, and used headhunters to poach employees from their competitors. Our analysis also shows that headhunters used various social interaction and contract-based approaches to mitigate these behaviors, which affected recruitment-related outcomes. This paper contributes to the literature by providing the first agency theory-based study on clients' opportunist behaviors, bringing principals into agency theory-based research, and showing that clients' opportunism affects recruitment-related outcomes.

Despite frequent claims that increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hiring will reduce the human bias that has long plagued recruitment and selection, AI may equally replicate and amplify such bias and embed it in technology. This article explores exclusion and inclusion in AI-supported hiring, focusing on three interrelated areas: data, design and decisions. It is suggested that in terms of data, organisational fit, categorisations and intersectionality require consideration in relation to exclusion. As various stakeholders collaborate to create AI, it is essential to explore which groups are dominant and how subjective assessments are encoded in technology. Although AI-supported hiring should enhance recruitment decisions, evidence is lacking on how humans and machines interact in decision-making, and how algorithms can be audited and regulated effectively for inclusion. This article recommends areas for interrogation through further research, and contributes to understanding how algorithmic inclusion can be achieved in AI-supported hiring.

Green human resource management (GHRM), a set of HRM practices targeted at environmental goals, has been proposed as the key to achieving organisational sustainable development. However, the mechanisms through which GHRM influences employee green behaviour are not yet well understood. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study presents an integrated model revealing the mixed effects of GHRM on employees' voluntary workplace green behaviour (VWGB). Path analysis based on two studies undertaken in China largely supported our hypotheses. Specifically, GHRM was found to positively influence employees' VWGB through environmental commitment, while simultaneously decreasing their VWGB through emotional exhaustion. Meanwhile, supervisory support for environmental behaviour mitigated the impact of GHRM on emotional exhaustion as well as the relationship between GHRM and employee VWGB via emotional exhaustion. This study contributes to the GHRM literature in particular and organisational environmental management literature in general.

This registered report aims to evaluate the extent to which the human resources function can change public attitudes toward a controversial social issue. Focusing on the employment of formerly incarcerated people, we explore the novel concept of “human resources social advocacy” (HRSA), an interventionist approach through which HR might pro-actively change and/or shape people's minds on social issues via the communication and conveyance of ideas related to HR matters of public interest. We seek to test the effectiveness of two HRSA interventions in reducing public stigma toward the employment of formerly incarcerated people. One makes a moral case (“Changing Hearts”) and the other makes an instrument case (“Changing Minds”) for including formerly incarcerated people in the labor market. We also explore which of the two interventions is more effective at achieving normative change. This research will have important implications for the “societal effects” of human resource management.

Professionalization aims at closure, that is, having the monopoly protection of expertise for an occupation on the labour market and in organizations. Role congruity theory suggests that the translation of professionalization into organizational closure and reaching board membership is likely to be moderated by gender at the individual and the occupational level. We test this proposition focusing on Human Resource Management (HRM), an occupation with a long history of professionalization attempts. Using a sample of 3276 organizations embedded in 34 countries with varying professionalization levels between countries, results show that professionalization of HRM at the country level is positively related to closure in organizations. The positive relationship is weaker for female HR directors and high proportions of women in the HRM occupation in a country. Organizational closure, in contrast, is negatively related to board representation but increases the likelihood of board membership in countries with high proportions of women in the HRM occupation.