Seongmin Ryu

Family-Supportive Work Environment and Employee Work Behaviors: An Investigation of Mediating Mechanisms

This study examined psychological mechanisms that underpin the relationships between perceived organizational family support (POFS) and a family-supportive supervisor (FSS) on employee work behaviors. Based on data from employed parents and their supervisors (N = 230) in 12 South Korean organizations, structural equation modeling results revealed three salient findings: (1) POFS and FSS are indirectly related to contextual performance through control over work time, (2) FSS is indirectly related to both contextual performance and work withdrawal through organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), and (3) control over work time is indirectly related to the two work outcomes through OBSE. The authors interpret these findings as indicating support for the focus on informal workplace family support and the need for research to examine the psychological resources they engender if we are to understand why these forms of support have their demonstrated outcomes.

Social capital of the HR department, HR's change agent role, and HR effectiveness: evidence from South Korean firms

This study argues that for a human resource (HR) department to be highly effective, it should be socially well connected to the line managers and their subordinates. We theorize that the interdepartmental social capital of HR leads to positive HR effectiveness through the benefits of information, influence, and solidarity. Furthermore, we argue that this relationship is stronger when HR undertakes the role of a change agent. We have tested our theory using nationally representative survey data from South Korea (n = 300). The results of our empirical analyses support our claims.

Determinants of the strategic involvement of human resource departments: evidence from large South Korean firms

This study draws on contextual theories to determine when strategic involvement of human resource (HR) departments is required in organisations. From institutional and contingency theories, some internal and external circumstances of organisations are considered contextual factors on how to structure the role of their HR departments. Using a multisource dataset collected from 300 large South Korean firms, our regression analysis indicates that the strategic involvement of an HR department is related to normative pressures, the industrial relations climate, and environmental uncertainty. Our work provides theoretical implications for the context-bound understanding of the role of an HR department and practical guidelines for effective role fulfilment of an HR department according to organisational contexts.

Transnational HR network learning in Korean business groups and the performance of their subsidiaries

This study explores (1) how two distinct dimensions of transnational human resources (HR) network learning, i.e. globally linked and locally leveraged learning, are related to the performance of the foreign subsidiaries of Korean business groups (chaebols) and (2) how strategic HR learning mediates the relationship between these two dimensions of transnational HR network learning and the performance of foreign subsidiaries. We propose that each dimension of transnational HR network learning is related independently and jointly to the performance of a chaebols foreign subsidiaries. Our results suggest that locally leveraged HR learning has a stronger relationship with the performance of sales subsidiaries, whereas globally linked HR learning has a stronger relationship with the performance of manufacturing subsidiaries. In addition, we find that the interaction between the two dimensions of transnational HR network learning has a weaker positive relationship with the performance of foreign manufacturing subsidiaries than that of foreign sales subsidiaries.