Renee de Reuver

The impact of individual and shared employee perceptions of HRM on affective commitment: Considering climate strength

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of whether individual perceptions of an HRM system – distinctiveness, consistency and consensus – and shared perceptions of HRM (climate strength) are positively related to affective commitment in the organization. In addition, the paper examines if climate strength has a mediating effect in the relationship between the individual perceptions of an HRM system and affective commitment.Design/methodology/approach – A survey study with data from 671 employees, 67 line‐managers and 32 HR‐managers within four hospitals was used.Findings – Results of two‐level analyses (department, employee) showed that the perception of distinctiveness, consistency and climate strength, as expected are positively related to affective commitment. Instead of a mediating effect of climate strength a moderator effect was found: the relationship between consistency and affective commitment is stronger when climate strength is high.Research limitations/implications – The ...

Predicting excellent management performance in an intercultural context. A study of the influence of multicultural personality on transformational leadership and performance

What makes a manager in an intercultural context an excellent performer? This question is the subject of the present study. The study examines the influence of the five dimensions of multicultural personality via transformational leadership on excellent performance in a sample of managers (N = 138) working in an expatriate assignment or in a job dealing with subordinates of different cultural backgrounds. As expected, cultural empathy, open-mindedness and social initiative were found to have a positive effect on transformational leadership. However, no significant effects were found from emotional stability and flexibility on transformational leadership. Furthermore, a more transformational leadership style led to higher performance in an intercultural context, which was measured using management performance appraisals. Since an indirect effect of cultural empathy, open mindedness and social initiative on performance via transformational leadership has been found in this study, it seems that both these dimensions of multicultural personality and transformational leadership are needed for excellent managerial performance in an international environment.

Getting the HR message across: The linkage between line HR consensus and commitment strength among hospital employees

Related to the theoretical work of Bowen and Ostroff (2004; also Ostroff/Bowen 2000), this article focuses on the features of an HRM system that help or constrain organizations to get their HR message across. At a department-level of analysis, we focus on the consensus between line managers and decentralized HR professionals on the human resource practices in place and on the either strategic or operational role of the HR function in the process of the management of employees. Stating that an organization?s HR policies are transmitted by decentralized line and HR managers, it is proposed that the more line and HR executives agree on the status of their relationship and the HR practices in place, the less employees vary in their affective attitudes of commitment to the organization. Central to this article is the ?strength? of affective organizational commitment among unit-members in a sample of 671 employees from 66 hospital departments drawn from four Dutch hospitals. Multi-level analyses indicate that consensus between HR professionals and line managers on HR practices (career opportunities, appraisal criteria) and on HR?s role is positively related to the commitment strength within a department. It is concluded that the collectivity of employee commitment to the organization is partly a function of department-level HR process indicators. Research limitations and implications for HR practitioners are discussed.

Commitment of Cultural Minorities in Organizations: Effects of Leadership and Pressure to Conform

PurposeIn this study, we investigated the commitment of cultural minorities and majorities in organizations. We examined how contextual factors, such as pressure to conform and leadership styles, affect the commitment of minority and majority members.Design/Methodology/ApproachA field study was conducted on 107 employees in a large multinational corporation.FindingsWe hypothesize and found that cultural minorities felt more committed to the organization than majority members, thereby challenging the existing theoretical view that cultural minorities will feel less committed. We also found that organizational pressure to conform and effective leadership increased the commitment of minorities.ImplicationsOur findings indicate that organizational leaders and researchers should not only focus on increasing and maintaining the commitment of minority members, but should also consider how majority members react to cultural socialization and integration processes. The commitment of minority members can be further enhanced by effective leadership.Originality/ValueIn this study, we challenge the existing theoretical view based on similarity attraction theory and relational demography theory, that cultural minorities would feel less committed to the organization. Past research has mainly focused on minority groups, thereby ignoring the reaction of the majority to socialization processes. In this study, we show that cultural minorities can be more committed than majority members in organizations. Therefore, the perceptions of cultural majority members of socialization processes should also be considered in research on cultural diversity and acculturation.

The Critical Roles of Task Conflict and Job Autonomy in the Relationship Between Proactive Personalities and Innovative Employee Behavior

We examine why and when proactive personality is beneficial for innovative behavior at work. Based on a survey among 166 employees working in 35 departments of a large municipality in the Netherlands we show that an increase in task conflicts explains the positive relation between a proactive personality and innovative employee behavior. This process is moderated by job autonomy in such a way that the relationship between proactive personality and task conflict is particularly strong under low compared with high autonomy. The present research contributes to the discussion on the potential benefits of task conflict for change processes and highlights the importance of examining the interplay between personality and work context for understanding innovation practices.

Restoring balance? Status inconsistency, absenteeism, and HRM practices

Although it is commonly assumed that perceptions of equity at work have a significant impact on employee absenteeism, our understanding of the equity–absence relationship is limited in that (1) little is known about equity concepts other than procedural and distributive justice; and (2) for the most part, research has overlooked variables likely to mediate and moderate the impact of equity on absenteeism. Drawing from the effort–reward imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1996), our study advances past research by investigating the association between status inconsistency (a situation in which there is a mismatch between, for example, a persons education and his/her income) and absenteeism, and the variables likely to account for this association. Results from a sample of 416 customer-care employees show that stress mediates the relationship between status inconsistency and absenteeism, and that HRM practices attenuate this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further reveal that HRM practices moderate the indirect effect of status inconsistency on absenteeism via stress.

All employees are equal, but some are more equal than others: dominance, agreeableness, and status inconsistency among men and women

Status inconsistency is a situation in which there is an objective or subjective mismatch between, for example, a person’s education and his/her income. This mismatch may transform into status enhancement, wherein rewards exceed one’s human capital, or into status detraction, wherein one’s human capital exceeds one’s rewards. Although status inconsistency affects employees’ attitudes and behaviours, little is known about individual differences in this variable. The current study investigates whether the relationships of agreeableness and dominance—with objective and subjective status inconsistency vary by gender. We analysed objective and subjective input and return statuses among a sample of 375 employees. We found that men who expressed a gender-non-congruent trait, namely agreeableness, experienced an objective backlash effect compared with dominant men, whereas women who expressed a gender-non-congruent trait, namely dominance, did not experience a backlash effect compared with agreeable women. In addition, our results show that agreeable employees, both men and women, perceive themselves as status-enhanced when in fact they are not. Finally, we show that objective status inconsistency mediates the relationships of agreeableness and dominance with subjective status inconsistency.