Disentangling the strength of the HRM system: effects on employees reactions
| Pages | 281-299 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-12-2018-0322 |
| Published date | 25 November 2019 |
| Date | 25 November 2019 |
| Author | Dolores de la Rosa-Navarro,Mirta Díaz-Fernández,Alvaro Lopez-Cabrales |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Disentangling the strength of the
HRM system: effects on
employees reactions
Dolores de la Rosa-Navarro, Mirta Díaz-Fernández and
Alvaro Lopez-Cabrales
Department of Business Administration, Pablo de Olavide University, Sevilla, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –A strong HRM system (encompassing the dimensions of distinctiveness, consistency and
consensus)facilitates a collectiveinterpretation of Human ResourceManagement (HRM) practicesin a common
direction, and consequently, a conjoint responseby employees. The purpose of this paper is two fold: firstto
argue that those dimensions have a direct impact on the reaction of employees (organisational citizenship
behaviour, OCB and intention to remain, IR); and second, the authors propose that these dimensions are not
independent, but rather can interact in such a way that consensus impacts on the consistency of an HRM
system, and consistency mediates the relationship betweenconsensus and OCB and IR.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors surveyed HR managers and employees from a sample of
102 Spanish hotels. Specifically, HR managers were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing the
dimensions of HRM strength, and employees completed a different questionnaire reporting their levels of
OCB and IR. The authors examined the reliability and validity of measures by means of Confirmatory Factor
Analysis. Finally, structural equations models were applied to test direct effects and mediating hypotheses.
Findings –As an initial finding, the authors obtained two dimensions of HRM strength: consistency and a
new factor, which is a combination of distinctiveness and consensus, labelled the “Reputation”of the HRM
system. A second result is that such the reputation of the HRM system positively affects OCB and IR. Third,
consistency mediates in the relationships between the reputation of the HRM system and OCB and IR.
Research limitations/implications –Although the authors are aware of the limitations of our paper,
regarding the cross-sectional data design and the assessment of HR strength by managers, the authors
believe that the results highlight the importance of HRM system strength, since it affects individual outcomes.
Originality/value –One of the valuable contributions made by this paper is that the authors obtained two
dimensions for HRM strength instead of the three proposed by Bowen and Ostroff (2004): consistency and
reputation (as a combination of distinctiveness and consensus). The authors explain that the new dimension is
related to the concept of employer branding, emphasising HRM system’s internal image, facilitating common
expectations that guide employees towards the desired responses. Second, Reputation impacts Consistency,
improving employees’OCB and IR; hence, the dimensions of HRM system strength are not independent, but
they are better able to interact in order to affect employee outcomes.
Keywords Intention to remain, Organizational citizenship behaviour, Strength of HRM system
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The main theoretical approaches to understanding the influence of Human Resource
Management (HRM) on organisational results have focused on HRM practices as drivers of
performance and competitiveness. The behavioural approach (Schuler and Jackson, 1987)
argues that certain HRM practices develop employees’skills, knowledge and motivation in
such a way that their behaviours contribute to the implementation of strategy and the
achievement of strategic goals. For its part, the resource-based view (Barney, 1991) relies on
certain characteristics of human resources and the way in which they are managed by
means of specific HRM practices to provide a source of sustainable competitive advantage
(Wright et al., 1994). These research streams study the content of HRM practices. Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 2, 2020
pp. 281-299
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-12-2018-0322
Received 13 December 2018
Revised 9 April 2019
26 June 2019
Accepted 16 August 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
This work was supported by FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades-Agencia
Estatal de Investigación (ECO2017-82208-P) and Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Plan
Nacional de IþDþI (ECO2013-44274-P).
281
Disentangling
the strength of
the HRM
system
According to Bowen and Ostroff (2004), the content of an HRM system refers to the set of
practices devised for meeting strategic goals. However, this approach seems to be
insufficient to answer the question regarding how HRM affects organisational performance
(Paauwe, 2009; Boselie et al., 2005). In that respect, researchers have shifted the focus from
HRM content onto process (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004; Nishii et al., 2008). Research has
gradually moved away from an exclusive focus on HRM content and static concepts of
positioning towards HRM processes and a dynamic approach (Heffernan et al., 2016). HRM
process refers to “the features of an HRM system that send signals to employees that allow
them to understand the desired and appropriate responses and form a collective sense of
what is expected”(Bowen and Ostroff, 2004, p. 204).
As long as perceptionsare shared by employees,the intended attitudes and behavioursare
more likely to be achieved (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). A strong organisational climate will
facilitate a collective interpretation of HRM practices in a common direction, and
consequently, a conjoint response by employees. Bowen and Ostroff (2004), on the basis of
Kelley’s(1967) attribution theory,propose the features that makea strong HRM system, which
are distinctiveness, consistencyand consensus. The distinctiveness of an HRM systemimplies
that it stands out in the environment, showing it to be significant, thereby drawingattention
and provoking certain uniformity in employees’reactions (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004).
Consistency generally refers to coherence in the event-effect relationship, which remains
steady over time regardless of people and contexts (Katou et al., 2014). Consensus refers to
features that produce agreement in employees’views of the event-effect relationship, in part
because there is agreement among the message senders (Sanders et al., 2008).
In spite of the interest surroundingthe concept of strength and its popularity among HRM
researchers (Bednall et al., 2014; Coelho et al., 2012; Delmotte et al., 2012; Katou et al., 2014;
White and Bryson, 2013), there is a research gap surrounding the way the different
dimensions worktogether in order to achieve employee outcomes.Indeed, Ostroff and Bowen
(2016), in theircritical review of the research being developedabout their proposal of strength,
suggested that distinctiveness, consistency and consensus are not in fact independent
dimensions andthat they can influence each other.Therefore, this paper pursues two specific
objectives: first, to study the effects of HRM strength on employee reactions in the form of
organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and intentions to remain (IR), as a strong HRM
system createsa shared attribution ofmeaning to HRM practices, therebygenerating common
expectations,and conjoint attitudesand behaviours. Second, toascertain whether the different
dimensions of HRM strength influence each other in order to trigger these expected effects.
This second objective is relevant and novel because it empirically verifies the suggestion
made by Ostroff and Bowen (2016) that those dimensions might be related to one other.
One distinctive feature of this paper is the perspective chosen to studysuch relationships.
Previous research testing the strength of HRM systems has focused on employees as
respondents who assess distinctiveness, consistency and consensus. The logic behind this is
that it is not only important to offer certain HRM practices to employees (HRM content) but
also to ensure they are similarly perceived by employees, in order to achieve the employer’s
intended aims(Nishii et al., 2008). This paperadopts managerial perceptionsin order to assess
the strength of HRM systems. As HR managers are the key players who design HRM
practicesand policies, this paper focuses on theirperceptions in terms of the distinctiveness of
the messages they send out, consistency in the way HR practices work and the degree of
consensus they generate. Although more respondents and perceptions are usually
recommended to avoid the Common Method Bias, the literature has stated the validity of
using just oneinformant, the HR manager, in caseswhere very specific informationis required
that this person knows (Arthur and Boyles, 2007; Bou-LLusar et al., 2016). By asking HR
managers,we are seeking to ascertain how the HRM system is introducedor how it is actually
applied, following the typology developed by Renkema et al. (2017). It is similar to the
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