Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources最新文献

The wage gap between people with disabilities (PWD) and people without disabilities (PWOD), which discourages PWD from entering the labor market, is attributed to two factors: productivity differences and discrimination effects. To determine whether PWD in China face wage discrimination in the labor market and which factor contributes more to the disability-related wage gap in China, this study uses Chinese Household Income Project data (years 2007 and 2013) to estimate disability-related wage discrimination, decomposing the wage gap between PWD and PWOD using the Oaxaca-Blinder and Neumark approach. The findings demonstrate the presence of disability-related discrimination in China, accounting for approximately 38.9%–52.4% of the wage gap between PWD and PWOD. Unobservable productivity effects contribute more to the wage gap than does disability-related discrimination. Male PWD living in rural areas and less educated people are more likely to experience wage discrimination in China. Moreover, individuals with disabilities in rural areas experience significant disability-related discrimination, whereas no such phenomenon is observed in urban or migrant populations. Future human resource management policies should consider antidiscrimination measures and improve the productivity of PWD, including providing reasonable accommodation for PWD in the workplace and ensuring equality in job searches and employment.

Enterprises have sought to explore appropriate human resource practices to cope with sustainability problems caused by increasingly severe environmental pollution and the imbalance of interest among multiple stakeholders. Our study tries to address this issue by systematically conceptualizing the construct of green-harmonious human resource practice (GH-HRP) and exploring how and when GH-HRP promotes employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In Study 1, we develop a four-dimension, 16-item GH-HRP scale including green-harmonious selection, responsibility consciousness development, harmonious win-win compensation, and green-harmonious activity participation. In Study 2, using three-wave data from 390 supervisor-employee dyads, we find that GH-HRP facilitates employee OCB through the mediating role of duty orientation and meaning of work. Further, ethical leadership moderates the positive effects of GH-HRP on duty orientation and meaning of work such that these effects are more pronounced when ethical leadership is high, thus fostering employees' engagement in OCB. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This paper critically examines the notion of working time flexibility of platform takeaway riders and its impact on them in China. Drawing on 25 interviews with platform and takeaway delivery company managers and takeaway riders as well as secondary data, the study finds that the management model adopted by the platform companies and their agency companies often encourages riders to extend their working hours by being designed into the rider's earning system, status level and various incentive schemes. Driven by profits, takeaway delivery platform companies pursue speed and impose harsh punishments for poor customer reviews. Severe competition and the platforms' aggressive pricing and commissioning practices mean that takeaway riders' remuneration is tightly squeezed, with no subsidies or overtime payment, and with rules for bonuses that make it increasingly difficult to earn. Working excessively long and intense hours is the only way that riders can increase their income, which suggests that rider-oriented working time flexibility is virtually non-existent. We propose the notion of fragmented employment relationships and fragmented working time to conceptualise working time flexibility in the takeaway delivery context in China. We accentuate the need to examine the quality of working time flexibility when examining this practice. We call for state interventions to provide a greater level of social protection than the takeaway riders are currently experiencing to advance the decent work agenda as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The role of gender in career mobility is a major practical and scholarly concern. Drawing on boundaryless career literature and social role theory, we examined whether gender influences employees' psychological mobility, whether this influence varies depending on the nature of career boundaries (the boundaries of job, organisation and industry) and whether it is contingent on organisational or occupational characteristics. We conducted cross-classified multilevel analyses on 3,527 Australian employees nested within 725 organisations and 43 occupations. The results suggest that females show higher mobility preferences than males when it comes to crossing industries but not changing organisations or jobs. However, their preference for crossing career boundaries is significantly reduced when their organisation has a strong presence of female leadership. We also find that in female-dominated occupations, females show a higher cross-organisational mobility preference than males, while in male-dominated occupations, females show a lower cross-organisational mobility preference.

This paper advances a legitimacy-based view on what factors determine multinational corporation (MNC) employees' adoption of English at work. We posit that legitimacy judgment represents an alternative mechanism, other than language ability, for explaining MNC employees' response to headquarters' corporate language policy. The hypotheses were confirmed in two studies with mixed-methods (experiments; semi-structured interviews), involving MNC employees in China. Our findings verified that corporate language policy increases positive legitimacy judgment, which in turn enhances employees' adoption of English at work. Further analysis showed that language ability moderates the mediating effect of legitimacy judgment, such that this effect is stronger for employees with lower language ability. Semi-structured interviews confirmed the experimental findings and brought more insight into why and how Chinese employees adopt English in daily work. This paper contributes to the research on corporate language policy, legitimacy judgment, and cross-border management in Asia Pacific.

The 4-day work week (4DWW) was popularised in the 1970s, but has recently gained significant global attention again, with a growing number of organisations experimenting with the 4DWW in response to increasing demand for more flexible work arrangements (FWA) in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, with their potential to support worktime reduction strategies, are also refuelling interest in a shorter working week. This renewed interest motivated this scoping review of 1769 4DWW records from the past 52 years and enabled the authors to identify five major themes: employee acceptance, allocation of time, leisure, gender and career advancement, and productivity. These themes are used to consider specific forms of 4DWW in terms of whether days of work are fixed or flexible, whether the 4DWW is an employee option, and whether total weekly hours worked or pay are reduced. Conservation of resources theory is used as a lens for interpreting the themes. The authors believe these themes and lessons have significant implications for a growing number of scholars and practitioners, who are investigating, trialling, and implementing 4DWW arrangements, in response to growing demand for more FWA options from employees across all sectors.

Our Special Issue is focused on the healthcare sector relevant to the Asia Pacific region, including hospitals, aged care facilities, allied health, doctors, nurses, management and administration staff and all services associated with the healthcare industry. There are a range of issues that impact on healthcare including the growing use of health services during the pandemic, emergency situations, complex forms of technology, worker expectations, work intensification, and government reporting requirements. More research needs to be carried out in these issues as well as social policy, the delivery and quality of patient care, gender in the workplace, disability, and management innovation (Cooke and Bartram, 2015; Human Resource Management, 2015, 54, 711). There are high levels of stress due to staff being overworked and experiencing a lack of coping skills (Pariona-Cabrera et al., 2023; Health Care Management Review, 2023, 48, 42), burnout manifestations through emotional exhaustion (Maslach, 2017; Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 2017, 69, 143) which often result in intention to leave (Holland et al., 2019; Applied Nursing Research, 2019, 49, 70; Pariona-Cabrera, Cavanagh and Bartram, 2020; Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2020, 76, 1581; Shao et al., 2023; Human Resource Management Journal, 2023, 33,187). In Australia, more than 70% of 366,000 nurses working in aged care facilities have reported at least one experience of workplace violence during the previous 12 months including physical and verbal violence from residents, relatives, and visitors (Schablon et al., 2018; International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2018, 15, 1274). There are too many managers who rely on underdeveloped HR processes and outdated management perceptions to make decisions about the well-being of healthcare staff. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are actively seeking partnership projects and new ways to enhance the performance of healthcare staff and their organisations. We have touched on broad issues here and argue it is possible some of the answers can be found in the use of HR analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

Management literature suggests that diverse experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds are crucial to innovation in modern organisations. However, in practice, distinctive backgrounds and experiences may be subject to discrimination, which can act as barriers to securing employment. This study involved 62 in-depth interviews, 50 with skilled migrants (SMs) and 12 with recruiters, exploring discrimination in recruitment practices experienced by Vietnamese SM job seekers. The findings indicate that while racial discrimination was not considered a significant barrier to employment for Vietnamese SMs, local recruiters did not consider their overseas-acquired work experience relevant. This excluded them from the recruitment pool. The study calls for more robust measures of inclusion considerations in recruitment and selection processes to be in place. Organisations need to develop a clear recruitment inclusion policy to balance the economic benefits candidates can bring to the organisation soon after joining and the long-term benefits a diverse workforce creates.