Ying Hong

Do They See Eye to Eye? Management and Employee Perspectives of High-Performance Work Systems and Influence Processes on Service Quality

Extant research on high-performance work systems (HPWSs) has primarily examined the effects of HPWSs on establishment or firm-level performance from a management perspective in manufacturing settings. The current study extends this literature by differentiating management and employee perspectives of HPWSs and examining how the two perspectives relate to employee individual performance in the service context. Data collected in three phases from multiple sources involving 292 managers, 830 employees, and 1,772 customers of 91 bank branches revealed significant differences between management and employee perspectives of HPWSs. There were also significant differences in employee perspectives of HPWSs among employees of different employment statuses and among employees of the same status. Further, employee perspective of HPWSs was positively related to individual general service performance through the mediation of employee human capital and perceived organizational support and was positively related to individual knowledge-intensive service performance through the mediation of employee human capital and psychological empowerment. At the same time, management perspective of HPWSs was related to employee human capital and both types of service performance. Finally, a branchs overall knowledge-intensive service performance was positively associated with customer overall satisfaction with the branchs service.

When Western HRM constructs meet Chinese contexts: validating the pluralistic structures of human resource management systems in China

This study takes a contextualized approach to examine the structures, measures and predictive value of four human resource management (HRM) systems in China. Synthesizing the established concepts in the Western literature with the indigenous practices in the Chinese workplace, we contextually adapt the conceptual components of commitment-based, collaboration-based, controlled-based and contract-based HRM systems. Using data from 224 organizations, we found a pluralistic structure of the HRM systems, consisting of two discriminant dimensions within each HRM system, and a high-order model encompassing all HRM systems. In addition, we found different predictive value of the HRM systems firm innovation, cost reduction and bottom-line performance. Ideas for future research and practical implications are also discussed.

Competing Through Customization: Using Human Resource Management to Create Strategic Capabilities

Given the increasingly diverse customer preferences, customization has become a strategic opportunity for organizations to create value. There is no systematic effort, however, in understanding the implementation of customization as a competitive strategy. Based on theories of resources and capabilities and the multidimensional view of economic rents, we derive three strategies of customization—mass production, mass customization, and total customization—each creating a unique value for customers and incurring different costs. To bridge the gap in the human resources literature in delineating the strategic capabilities as an intermediate outcome of human resources systems, we further draw from organizational psychology perspectives to infer how the strategic capabilities for customization can be created through different human resources management systems.