Leaders as HR sensegivers: Four HR implementation behaviors that create strong HR systems

Identifying strategic human resource management ability in the clinical departments of public hospitals in China: a modified Delphi study

OBJECTIVES

Chinese public hospitals are managed like a bureaucracy, which is divided into two levels of hospital and departmental management. Improving strategic human resource management ability (SHRMA) within clinical departments can improve department performance and service quality, which is an important way for public hospitals to obtain an advantage in a diversified competitive medical market. However, there is a lack of specialised evaluation tools for SHRMA in clinical departments to support this effort. Therefore, this study aims to develop an index for evaluating the SHRMA of clinical departments in public hospitals.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

The Delphi technique was carried out with 22 experts, and an evaluation index of the SHRMA in the clinical departments of public hospitals was constructed. The weight of each indicator was calculated by the intuitive fuzzy analytic hierarchy process.

RESULTS

The SHRMA index constructed in this study for the clinical departments in public hospitals includes 5 first-level indicators, 13 second-level indicators and 36 third-level indicators. The first-level indicators are distributed in weight among human resource maintenance (0.204), human resource planning (0.201), human resource development (0.200), human resource stimulation (0.198) and human resource absorption (0.198). The top three weighted indicators on the second level are job analysis and position evaluation (0.105), career management (0.103) and salary incentivisation (0.100).

CONCLUSIONS

The index constructed in this study is scientific and feasible and is expected to provide an effective tool for the quantitative evaluation of SHRMA in the clinical departments of public hospitals in China.

Performance management systems, innovative work behavior and the role of transformational leadership: an experimental approach

Purpose

Despite increasing attention to employee development, past research has mostly studied performance management systems (PMSs) in relation to task-related behaviors compared to proactive behaviors. Accordingly, this study addresses the relation between PMSs and innovative work behavior (IWB).

Design/methodology/approach

Building on signaling theory and human resource management (HRM) system strength research, the authors designed a factorial survey experiment (n = 444) to examine whether PMSs stimulate IWB under different configurations of distinctiveness, consistency and consensus, as well as in the presence of transformational leadership.

Findings

Results show that only strong PMSs foster IWB (high distinctiveness, high consistency and high consensus [HHH]). Additional analyses reveal that the individual meta-features of PMS consistency and consensus can also stimulate innovation. Transformational leadership reinforced the relationship between PMS consensus and IWB relationship, but not the relationships of the other meta-features.

Practical implications

The study’s findings suggest that organizations wishing to unlock employees' innovative potential should design PMSs that are visible, comprehensible and relevant. To further reap the innovative gains of employees, organizations could also invest in the coherent and fair application of planning, feedback and evaluation throughout the organization and ensure organizational stakeholders agree on the approach to PMSs.

Originality/value

The study’s findings show that PMS can also inspire proactivity in employees, in the form of IWB and suggest that particular leadership behaviors can complement certain PMS meta-features, and simultaneously also compete with PMS strength, suggesting the whole (i.e. PMS strength) is more than the sum of the parts (i.e. PMS meta-features).

High performance work system and transformational leadership: Revisiting and questioning their implications for health-related wellbeing

Employee wellbeing represents a profound management challenge for both leaders and HR professionals, and both transformational leadership (TL) and high performance work system (HPWS) are assumed to play important roles in tackling this challenge. However, we know little about their unique and relative importance in promoting wellbeing. To shed light on this methodologically, theoretically and practically important issue, we draw mainly on leadership substitutes theory. Based on a comprehensive mediation model we examine whether HPWS substitutes the assumed relationships between TL and employee emotional exhaustion. Our study answers to three important calls for research: to examine the joint effects of leadership and HPWS, to examine their health-related impact, and to pursue more theory contesting research in management studies. Based on data from 308 white collar employees working under 76 middle-managers in five Finnish organizations our study points to the incompleteness of previous siloed research on both TL and HPWS, sheds new light on their relationships with wellbeing, and suggests ways to develop both TL and HPWS theory, thus providing important guidance for future research on their effects.

The joint role of HRM and leadership for teleworker well-being: An analysis during the COVID-19 pandemic

The sudden and extensive implementation of teleworking in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened employees’ well-being. Based on the challenges that particularly threatened such well-being in the beginning of the pandemic, we identify sets of telework-specific HRM practices and leadership behaviors, and examine their joint relationships with teleworkers’ happiness well-being in terms of work engagement and job satisfaction. Thus, we also consider the mediating roles of social isolation (as an indicator of social well-being) and psychological strain (as an indicator of health well-being). We also expect that HRM and leadership should interact and reinforce each other. Our analyses are based on data from German teleworkers at two consecutive points in time. Our findings reveal differentiated and complementary effects of telework-oriented HRM and leadership. In particular, we identified the provision of health care to contribute most to telework-oriented HRM’s relationship with social isolation and happiness well-being. Telework-oriented leadership mainly affected teleworkers’ happiness well-being via strain by ensuring communication and information exchanges between teleworkers.

High-Performance Work Practices and Employee Wellbeing-Does Health-Oriented Leadership Make a Difference?

This paper sheds further light on the contextual boundaries in the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWPs) and employee wellbeing. In particular, we analyze whether this relationship is moderated by health-oriented leadership behavior (i.e., staff care) which describes the extent to which leaders value, are aware of, and protect their followers' health at work. Our analyses are based on employee data (N = 1,345) from Germany, covering two points in time. Findings show positive associations between HPWPs and happiness-related (i.e., engagement, commitment) and health-related (i.e., general health, physical health complaints, mental health complaints, strain) wellbeing outcomes. The positive relationship between HPWPs and employee wellbeing is weaker the more employees experience leadership behavior in terms of staff care. Thus, our results provide further evidence for a substitutive or compensatory effect between HRM and leadership.

Responsible Leadership Fuels Innovative Behavior: The Mediating Roles of Socially Responsible Human Resource Management and Organizational Pride

Leaders are under increasing pressure to inspire innovative endeavors in responsible ways. However, whether and how responsible leadership can fuel employee innovative behavior remains unknown. Therefore, drawing on social identity theory and social exchange theory, this study aims to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying the responsible leadership-innovative behavior relationship. Multi-phase data were collected from 280 employees working in Chinese manufacturing firms to test the hypotheses using hierarchical regression analyses and the bootstrap method. The results reveal that responsible leadership is positively related to innovative behavior. Additionally, perceived socially responsible human resource management (HRM) and organizational pride separately and sequentially mediate the responsible leadership-innovative behavior relationship. This study empirically reveals the effectiveness of responsible leadership and sheds new light on the psychological processes through which it facilitates innovative behavior, revealing the generalizability of responsible leadership and innovative behavior in the Chinese context. Moreover, we respond to the call for incorporating leadership theory into HRM research and further advance the existing knowledge on both antecedents and outcomes of socially responsible HRM. For practical guidance, organizations are encouraged to foster innovation through investment in responsible management practices. Research limitations and implications are also discussed.

What Leaders Say versus What They Do: Inclusive Leadership, Policy-Practice Decoupling, and the Anomaly of Climate for Inclusion

Inclusion is increasingly recognized as a critical leadership issue, yet research points to effectiveness variability among diversity and inclusion initiatives, indicative of potential policy-practice decoupling. Drawing on climate theory, we develop supervisors’ inclusive leadership and climate for inclusion and introducing CEO’s inclusive leadership and group diversity as moderators. To gain a deep understanding of decoupling, we use a multilevel approach and include in our model both top level leadership (CEOs), where espoused policies are determined, and group level leadership (supervisor), where enacted behaviors are experienced. We offer a novel perspective on climate theory for inclusion, which we have identified as “the anomaly of climate for inclusion.” Unlike other organizational climate facets, inclusion climate is shaped not only by the shared experiences of group members but also by their identities. Individuals from minority or underrepresented groups might experience decoupling in ways that are similar to other members from the same identity group even if they belong to different work groups. Our model, therefore, explains the process in which leaders create inclusive climate and point to boundary conditions in the process. We focus on two climate indicators: climate level and climate strength, and indicate that both are essential for understanding inclusion climate. Our conceptual model suggests that truly inclusive leaders would succeed at minimizing policy-practice coupling as perceived by all group members, not just historically dominant or high-status members. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Facilitating the Implementation Process of High-Performance Work Systems: The Role of Authentic Leadership

Although substantive research has devoted increasing attention to variability in human resource practices at the organization, group, and individual levels, the critical role of line managers’ leadership in predicting this variability in the human resource management delivery and implementation process has been overlooked. Drawing from social information processing theory and human resource (HR) attributions theory, this study proposes that authentic leadership moderates the positive relationship between department-level high-performance work systems and employee-perceived high-performance work systems. Moreover, employee-perceived high-performance work systems can enhance employees’ thriving at work through commitment-focused HR attributions (well-being and performance). Analyzing the matched data from 145 departments and 834 employees, we found that the extent to which department-level high-performance work systems are positively related to employee-perceived high-performance work systems depends on authentic leadership within departments. We also found that employee-perceived high-performance work systems will result in commitment-focused HR attributions (well-being and performance), which in turn motivate employees to thrive at work. This study sheds light on whether and how line managers’ leadership influences the HR management process.

An Interpersonal Perspective on HR Attributions: Examining the Role of Line Managers, Coworkers, and Similarity in Work-Related Motivations

Given that various studies have linked Human Resource (HR) attributions to important individual and organizational outcomes, the question that arises is what causes these HR attributions. By taking an interpersonal perspective it is examined how employees both individually as well as collectively interpret HR practices. Based on social information processing theory this study among 87 line manager–employee–coworker triads shows that line managers affect HR attributions of employees, and that employees also mutually influence each other’s HR attributions. This mutual influence process between coworkers is strengthened by similarity in work-related motivations. Our findings support the proposition that employees’ social environment at work, particularly their line manager and coworker, matters in HR attribution processes. This stresses the importance of considering the social environment at work to more fully understand the factors that shape employees’ understandings of HR practices.