Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources最新文献

This article examines the impact of the staffing of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on the innovation performance of the parent company and the moderating effect of the institutional distance between the host country and the home country. This paper conducts an empirical analysis on the data of 59 mature Chinese MNEs and their 872 overseas subsidiaries over the past 11 years and obtains some interesting results. The results show that the proportion of host country nationals (HCNs) in overseas subsidiaries has a significant positive impact on the innovation performance of the parent company and that it is not a simple linear relationship but rather an inverted U-shaped relationship. As HCNs increase, the ability to acquire knowledge is increasing, while the ability to integrate knowledge is decreasing. Thus, multiplicative combinations of latent mechanisms result in an inverted U-shaped relationship. However, the institutional distance between countries negatively moderates the effect of subsidiary HCN proportions on parent company innovation performance. The findings have important practical implications for the multinational innovation strategies of Chinese MNEs and governments.

Despite being a worldwide disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic has also provided an opportunity for renewed discussion about the way we work. By contextualizing in the early periods of China's ending of lockdown policy on COVID-19, this paper offers evidence to respond to an essential discussion in the field of working from home (WFH): In terms of job performance, can WFH replace working from the office (WFO)? The present study compares job performance in terms of quality and productivity between WFH and WFO from 861 Chinese respondents using entropy balance matching, a quasi-experimental methodology. Results reveal that WFH enhances job performance in terms of job quality but lowers it in terms of job productivity. In addition, the present study aims to capture and empirically measure the variations in fundamental job characteristics in terms of job control and job demand between WFH and WFO by applying the job demand control support model. More specifically, we find that job control items, such as ‘talking right’ and ‘work rate’, and job demand items, such as ‘a long time of intense concentration’ and ‘hecticness of the job’, are vital factors that contribute to how these differences exert influence on employees' performance in the context of the pandemic.

Based on conservation of resources theory, this study investigates how work-to-family conflict may lead to job strain and job search behavior. Using social identity theory, it also examines how organizational identification and worker cooperatives influence the relationships of both work-to-family conflict and job strain with job search behavior. Using a longitudinal data set of 305 employees in 25 worker cooperatives and 27 matched conventional corporations, we tested a set of hypotheses through multilevel moderated mediation and mediated moderation analyses. We found that worker cooperatives indirectly moderate, via organizational identification, the associations between work-to-family conflict and job search behavior and between job strain and job search behavior. Our findings suggest that the effects of work-to-family conflict and job strain on job search behavior may be contingent on the structure of ownership and control in organizations and the degree of employees' organizational identification.

Drawing on the tenets of job demands-resources and conservation of resources theories, it is suggested that HR attributions about wellness programs hold ‘job resource potential’, irrespective of actual participation. It is proposed positive (commitment, compliance) and negative (control, image) attributions about the organization's motivation for offering a wellness program predict employee outcomes. In addition, it is proposed wellness program attributions influence how employees cope with role overload. A sample of 524 Australian employees with access to a wellness program completed a questionnaire. Commitment and compliance buffered the negative effects of role overload on job dissatisfaction. However, commitment created a stress-exacerbating effect of role overload on days impaired due to poor health. Employees with control attributions were buffered from the negative effects of role overload on job dissatisfaction. Overall, results highlight that the underlying theoretical distinction between positive and negative HR attributions across different types of employee outcomes should not be assumed.

Despite numerous evidence for the leader's role in facilitating employees' green behavior, few studies have delved into the intervening mechanisms of the trickle-down effect transmitting green behavior from leaders to their subordinates. Drawing on social learning theory, we explicate a trickle-down process for voluntary green behavior from leaders to subordinates through leaders' green role model influence and employees' green self-efficacy, with leader gender as a moderator. Analysis of 70 leaders and 190 employees revealed that leaders' green role model influence and employees' green self-efficacy sequentially mediated the relationship between voluntary green behavior of leaders and that of employees. Moreover, both the direct and indirect effects were moderated by leader gender: While the direct effect was stronger for male leaders, the sequential mediating effect was stronger for female leaders. Overall, our study confirms the utility of social learning theory in explaining the trickle-down effect of voluntary green behavior at work.

This study was conducted to explore the influence of green human resource practices on employees' voluntary pro-environmental behavior through the sequential mediation path of green organizational climate and organizational identity. A total of 459 employees from the textile industry in Pakistan participated in the study. The results were collected using two sources (managers and employees) at two time points. The proposed research model of the study was tested using structural equation modeling. The results validated the significant positive relationship between green organizational climate and organizational identity. We also found support for the serial mediation of green organizational climate and organizational identity in the green human resource management–voluntary pro-environmental behavior relationship. All the hypotheses were significant. Overall, this study explains why and how green human resource management practices lead to voluntary pro-environmental behavior. The implications for theory and practices that will enable organizations to encourage voluntary pro-environmental behavior among their employees are discussed.

The purpose of the study was to enhance understanding of how self-initiated expatriates (SIE) adjust to new cultural contexts in the under-explored Indo-Japanese inter-Asian context. A literature review identified that Asian focal case studies are under-developed, especially regarding the important interactions between major advanced Asian economy and emerging Asian economy settings. Therefore, the study developed an illustrative case of advanced economy Japanese SIE managers’ lived experience in Indian emerging economy cross-cultural management situations. Deploying a social constructivist epistemology using interpretive analysis, the current study found clear evidence of an interplay of hitherto under-recognized common Indo-Japanese spiritual values with roots in Buddhism surfacing in the Japanese SIE's adjustment. The paper offers important insights to complement extant theory on the individual-level factors influencing SIE adjustment in an inter-Asian context. The study contributes to international human resource management literature by surfacing contextualized understanding of the role of traditional spiritual values in SIE adjustment.

Employee assistance programmes (EAPs) are designed to provide organisational support to employees, which is increasingly critical to improving employees' well-being in the current macro and micro environment of pandemic and work pressure. Despite their potential significant role as part of human resource management (HRM), EAPs in China are under-researched. Drawing on academic and practical sources of literature in both English and Chinese, this review study sheds light on the current state of research and practice of EAPs in China. We examine why, what and how EAPs are adopted in organisations in China and highlight differences between the public and private sectors in their EAPs, as well as the role of Chinese culture and guanxi with leaders in the delivery of EAPs. We also point out research avenues to extend the research field both theoretically and thematically, including the role of artificial intelligence and digital technology as part of effective EAPs.

Research on the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and organizational outcomes has mainly been studied at the organizational level so far. However, HRM scholars acknowledge that employees are the foundation of organizations, and they play an important role in the effect of HRM on employee and organizational outcomes. While research on HR content focuses on the effects of HR practices, HR process research considers how employee perceptions and attributions of HR influence organizational outcomes. In the special issue of New Frontiers in HR Practices and HR Processes: Evidence from Asia, we focus on emerging research in the Asian region, especially China and Pakistan regarding the role of employees, also known as the micro-foundations of HR research, in terms of both HR content and HR process. In this Introduction of the special issue, we review the current state-of-the-art studies in both research streams and highlight further research questions. We outline how the papers in this special issue advance our knowledge for the Asian region and we also call for more Asian region HR practice and HR process studies in the future.