Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources最新文献

Against a backdrop of an international policy agenda advocating for prosocial behavior directed toward workers, Australia introduced new Work Health and Safety (WHS) legislation in 2023 legally obliging senior management and board directors to mitigate worker harm as far as reasonably practicable. The operationalization of WHS is a key function of Human Resources (HR) within workplaces; however, the degree to which safety can be advanced is largely dependent on senior leadership's prioritization—creating complexity and tension. Indeed, there is minimal evidence regarding how HRM might effectively influence the prioritization of WHS by senior leadership, and the degree to which legislative changes may shift attitudes. Against this backdrop, this paper presents exploratory research underpinned by interviews with 43 business leaders and board directors across a range of sectors, as well as five WHS experts, exploring underlying attitudes toward WHS and worker safety. The findings identify that business drivers are more likely to promote change in WHS business practices if they have the knowledge and tools to assist them. Accordingly, from the analysis we propose a multi-pronged approach is required to educate and motivate senior leaders to shift their mindset toward prosocial WHS behavior in line with the international policy agenda and standards. The research also identified a lack of knowledge about educational and monitoring tools, especially for the board of directors, which future policy and implementation practices should address.

This study aims to address the puzzle of why the implementation of high-performance work systems (HPWS) may fail to deliver the expected outcomes. By integrating the process model of SHRM and social information processing theory, we propose that team leaders' HPWS cost-reduction attribution and extrinsic motivation create a gap between their implementation of HPWS and employees' experiences of HPWS, and this gap impedes the effectiveness of HPWS. We test our hypotheses using multisource data from 151 team leaders and their 996 employees in China. The results indicate that when team leaders implement HPWS with higher cost-reduction attribution or extrinsic motivation, team members have weaker collective experiences of HPWS, which, in turn, leads to lower organizational commitment and work engagement. These findings contribute to the HPWS literature by highlighting the significant role of team leaders' attributions and motivations in HPWS implementation, and by explaining why HPWS may not yield the desired results.

Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates how perceived supportive human resource (HR) practices influence employee well-being, examining the mediating roles of job crafting and person–organization fit, while accounting for the contextual influence of performance pressure. By doing so, it aims to enrich the literature on HRM's impact on employee well-being. The study employed a survey-based methodology, collecting data from 442 participants recruited through the Credamo online survey panel. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicate that supportive HR practices positively affect employee well-being, with this relationship being mediated by both job crafting and person–organization fit. Furthermore, performance pressure was found to moderate the mediating effect of job crafting, highlighting the conditional nature of these mechanisms. These results suggest that organizations can enhance employee well-being and job satisfaction by tailoring HR services to individual needs, embedding supportive practices within organizational culture, fostering alignment between employees and organizational values, and recognizing the influence of high-pressure environments on motivation. Unlike prior research, which often conceptualized employee well-being as merely a by-product of performance-oriented HRM, this study emphasizes the direct and positive impact of people-oriented HR practices. Importantly, it demonstrates that even under high-performance-pressure conditions, supportive HR practices can promote employee well-being, offering practical guidance for sustainable organizational development that benefits both employees and the organization.

This study examines how recent employees with autism adapt to their new jobs through organizational socialization. A qualitative and phenomenological methodology and in-depth interviews with employers, supervisors, coworkers, and new hires with autism revealed that (i) colleagues' prior knowledge and experience of neurodiversity, (ii) leadership approaches, and (iii) provision of the hybrid model of individualized socialization and accommodations. The findings underscore the necessity of inclusive organizational strategies to foster workplace neurodiversity and the disparities between public and private sector workplaces in inclusive organizational socialization practices. Furthermore, this study contributes to Organizational Theory and HRM and offers key recommendations for fostering neurodiversity and workplace inclusion through the organizational socialization process from organization leaders, policy shapers and practitioners.

The insufficient exploration of the effects of HRM digitalization has led to a concern that digitalization costs employees' growth and development to improve their performance. To address this concern, this study, based on signaling theory, discloses the positive mechanism underlying the relationship between HRM digitalization and employee thriving at work. Specifically, we explored how HRM digitalization enhances HRM system strength, which in turn plays the role of a positive HRM process signal promoting employee thriving at work. Besides, we propose employee participation in goal setting, as an HRM content factor, could amplify the positive influence of the HRM process signal on employee thriving at work. Through multi-wave and multi-source data across 2077 employees and 128 HR directors from 128 organizations, results showed that HRM system strength plays a positive mediating effect in the relationship between HRM digitalization and employee thriving at work; employee participation in goal setting could augment the positive effect of HRM system strength on employee thriving at work as well as its mediating effect. Based on these findings, we discuss underlying theoretical and practical implications and outline future research directions.

Remote work arrangements are compelling examples of an organization's ability to utilize digital technology. This study analyzes data from a representative survey of Atlantic Canadian employers to evaluate three phenomena: how remote work evolved during the recent COVID-19 pandemic; the factors influencing these changes; and the impact of these changes on business outcomes. Our findings suggest that urban firms, technologically advanced companies in certain highly skilled industries, and firms offering greater flexibility for remote work were most likely to enhance remote work practices during the pandemic. For the average firm, an increase in the share of remote work correlated with higher organizational productivity, improved employee performance, and greater new product/service innovation. The primary downside was heightened management complexity. Variations were observed along industry and provincial lines.

In focusing on the contextual aspects of human resource management (HRM), this special issue provides the opportunity to explore HRM in a more nuanced and layered way, as a lived experience that is often overlooked in the academic field of HRM. The paper examines the moral role and responsibility of HRM within organisations. Traditionally, the role of HRM has been on balancing the expectations of the organisation and the well-being of the employee. However, with the strategic shift of HRM to a more managerialist or strategic partner focus, this has created a subtle but important divergence in how the organisation balances these issues, through its principles, policies and practices. We argue that this shift has the potential to create a lack of checks and balances in the system that becomes apparent when issues or incidents are not addressed but gain momentum due to a lack of (HRM) safeguards. We have titled this ‘HRM missing in action’ as a term exposing HR's lack of input into encouraging management to act in the best interests of all stakeholders and stop negating the responsibility to be the moral compass of the organisation. Using the taxonomy of rhetoric and deceit as a frame, we examine the contemporary issue of sexual harassment in the mining industry. We identify that there is a clear argument to be made that at times HRM is missing in its responsibilities to support employees.

Grounded in socio-technical systems (STS) theory, this paper investigates how HRM decision-making balances technological integration with people-centric concerns, including employee well-being, skills development, and workforce resilience. Using a qualitative study design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 23 senior council officers and document analysis of over 50 council reports and workforce strategies. The findings highlight complex layers of context, such as the specific characteristics of local councils (descriptive), the broader systems and structures they operate within (analytical), and the formal institutions and regulations they must follow (institutional), all of which influence HRM adaptation to technological changes. The study highlights how sector-specific contextual conditions, such as public sector constraints, state-level regulatory controls, complex governance systems, financial limitations, and urban–rural disparities, influence HRM responses. While these contextual factors often restrict organisational flexibility, they also function as catalysts for innovative HR practices focused on attraction, upskilling, and retention. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of how local governments (LGs) in Australia navigate workforce transformation amid technological change. It provides actionable insights for HR professionals seeking to align human capital development with emerging digital demands.

Academics' mental health in Australian universities has deteriorated, yet evidence on how perceived HR practices shape outcomes is fragmented. This conceptual article develops a framework linking perceived HR practices to academics' mental health in a post-pandemic sector facing caps on international enrolments. Synthesising job demands–resources, social exchange and psychosocial safety climate theories with an integrative review, we argue perceived HR practices act through two pathways: an enabling route—fair rewards, transparent promotion and development and credible appraisal, that builds capability and engagement; and a depleting route—workload pressure and job insecurity, that erodes capacity. Collegiality and trust (relational context) and job security (employment context) condition these effects, helping reconcile mixed findings. Theoretically, the framework extends perceived HR research to higher education; practically, it guides institutions in designing HR systems that protect mental health. We outline directions for empirical testing and interventions that strengthen collegiality, trust and job security.

The human resource management literature has investigated the impact of workforce mobility, including cross-country HR practices, finding evidence about the nuances of HR practices in cross-country contexts. However, the impact of within-country contexts on HR practices has not been studied to the same extent. This qualitative study explored the impact of place, an element of context, within regional northern Australia. The study investigated the experiences of HR practitioners to identify if, and how, HR practices are influenced by place, thus contributing to the broader literature about HR and context. A purposive non-probability sampling approach was adopted, with 24 interviews conducted with HR practitioners. The study identified 16 aspects of place that influence HR practices. Overall, the findings suggest that while HR practices are generic, place influenced the localised implementation. Future research should focus on the intersection of context and identity.