New times for HRM? Well-being oriented management (WOM), harmonious work passion and innovative work behavior
| Date | 17 February 2020 |
| Published date | 17 February 2020 |
| Pages | 561-581 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-04-2019-0185 |
| Author | Andres Salas-Vallina,Manoli Pozo,Rafael Fernandez-Guerrero |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
New times for HRM? Well-being
oriented management (WOM),
harmonious work passion and
innovative work behavior
Andres Salas-Vallina
Department of Business Management, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Manoli Pozo
Department of Social Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, and
Rafael Fernandez-Guerrero
Department of Business Management, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to measure and conceptualize the concept of well-being-oriented
management (WOM), and to investigate the relationship between well-being oriented management (WOM),
harmonious work passion, and innovative work behavior (IWB).
Design/methodology/approach –In a sample of 362 senior managers, the authors used a two-wave
structural equation model to verify whether the relationship between WOM and IWB was mediated by
harmonious work passion.
Findings –This study reveals that human resource practices (HRM) oriented toward well-being, namely
WOM, can be measured and conceptualized. In addition, WOM implemented over a period of one year,
subsequently fostered IWB. Further, the role of harmonious passion as a catalyst in the relationship between
these HRM practices and IWB was also examined.
Originality/value –Drawing upon the social exchange theory and the Job Demands-Resources model, our
contributions are threefold: to conceptualize and empirically measure WOM; to discover the effect of WOM on
IWB, and to assess the mediating role of harmonious work passion in the relationship between WOM and IWB.
Keywords Motivation, Employee attitudes, Employee behavior, Employee relations, Attitudes
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
There is widespread consensus in literature that innovation is fundamental for the
development of competitive advantage (Smith, 2018). Organizational innovation depends on
individual level creativityand proactive behavior, as employees have the potentialto develop
and enhance innovation at multiple levels. Innovative work behavior(IWB) is understood as
the proactiveand self-initiating (Battistelli et al.,2014)generation of ideas and their subsequent
implementation (Janssen, 2000). It refers to an “everyday innovation”dependent on the
employees’intentional effortsto provide beneficially novel outcomes at work (Janssen, 2000).
Understanding the drivers behind innovation has become a fundamental topic in
innovation literature (Wang and Zatzick, 2019). Innovation is cognitively and emotionally
demanding (Janssen, 2004), and requires employees to invest considerable resources in each
innovation stage. For example, generating ideas requires involvement in a series of activities
(problem identification, data gathering, idea evaluation) which demand continuous effort
Opening the
mutual gains
model debate
561
Erratum. It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article Salas-Vallina, A., Pozo, M. and
Fernandez-Guerrero, R. (2020), “New times for HRM? Well-being oriented management (WOM),
harmonious work passion and innovative work behavior”, published in Employee Relations, previously
listed an incorrect title. The title has since been updated and future citations should reflect this. The
publisher sincerely apologises for these errors and for any inconvenience caused.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 16 April 2019
Revised 10 September 2019
24 October 2019
Accepted 25 October 2019
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 3, 2020
pp. 561-581
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-04-2019-0185
over sustained periods of time (Mumford et al., 2002). Furthermore, when novel ideas are
developed, increased emotional effort is needed to overcome organizational resistance, as well
as to obtain support from managers (Janssen, 2004). Moreover, unexpected problems require
employees to devote additional efforts to problem-solving activities.
HRM might provide the necessary support to deal with this challenging task in the
innovation process. Recent studies are starting to examine the role of HRM as a job resource
fostering employee outcomes (Van de Vorde and Van Veldhoven, 2016), including innovation
(Berber and Lekovic, 2018). This means that HRM is a central job resource providing
employees with the necessary tools in highly demanding tasks. Despite the apparent
progress made when examining the effects of HRM (Paauwe et al., 2013), most research is
unable to explain the causal relationship between HRM and outcomes such as innovation,
perhaps because most HRM studies focus on the HRM-performance link, at the expense of
employee well-being (Guest, 2017;Salas-Vallina and Fernandez-Guerrero, 2017).
Contradictory findings in the relationship between high-performance work systems, high
involvement human resource practices and performance have been found (Guest, 2017).
Literature claims for a shift in the HRM focus in order to give priority to employees, and this
research develops and tests a novel set of practices oriented towards well-being, grounded in
literature on the subject (Warr, 1990;Guest, 2017). We named these practices “well-being-
oriented management”(WOM), and they are expected to cover basic psychological, physical
and social human needs. They include enriching, strengthening, empowering and connecting
practices, and can be defined as HR practices that are employee-centered and which provide
them with the necessary support to increase the quality of their working lives. For this reason,
we argue that WOM is appropriately designed to deal with highly-demanding contexts, such
as innovation processes. The first objective of this investigation is to measure and
conceptualize WOM, and the second objective is to examine the effect of WOM on IWB.
HRM literature advocates more empirical research on the specific mechanisms through
which bundles of HRM practices impact on employee outcomes (De Reuver et al., 2019). The
present study aims to demonstrate that harmonious passion is an effective motivational
mechanism that mediates the interactive effect of WOM and IWB. The differential element of
WOM relies on its capacity to energize and invigorate employees, given that it provides
psychological, physical and social well-being, thus improving employees’resources. WOM is
therefore focused on employees’well-being, and has an impact on ind ividuals’feelings and
attitudes. This makes employees more absorbed by and identified with their work activities,
making them more passionate at work. Harmonious work passion is defined as the
internalization of an activity, integrating it into one’s identity by choice, and creating a sense
of personalenjoyment (Vallerandet al., 2003).We expect harmoniouswork passion to be the key
mechanismthrough which WOMmore effectively impactson IWB. There is growinginterest in
the conceptof work passion (Ho et al.,2018), as evidencehas demonstratedits close relationship
with positive attitudes (Forest et al., 2012) and behaviors such as creativity and performance
(Liu et al., 2011). Harmonious work passion is qualitatively distinct from other concepts that
have been examined as enhancers of the innovation process, such as engagement (Agarwal
et al., 2012) and positive mood (Vallerandet al .,200 3).
We previously suggested that when HRM practices are oriented toward employees’well-
being, rather than towards organizational objectives, IWB arises. We also pointed out that
WOM provides the required resources for employees to deal with challenging and complex
circumstances, suchas innovationprocesses. Our coreargument is thatWOM directly improves
employees’psychological, physical and social mindset, in turn invigorating and energizing
them.As a consequence,individualsfeel more passionate,in the sense thatthey value theirwork
tasks, enjoy engaging in those tasks, anddo so on a regular basis (Vallerand et al., 2003).
When WOM generates this work passion, cognitive flexibility is increased (Isen, 1999),
thus promoting innovative behavior. Furthermore, harmonious work passion enables
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