Knowledge that Transforms

AbstractResearch interest in thriving at work has burgeoned over the past decades, but little is known about how human resource (HR) practices affect employees' thriving at work. Drawing upon self‐determination theory and person‐organization fit theory, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to explain how fun HR practices influence employees' thriving at work. The results of two studies, a scenario experiment (N = 164) and a time‐lagged survey (N = 253), supported our hypotheses. Specifically, the findings revealed that fun HR practices relates positively to employees' thriving at work. Autonomous motivation partially mediates the abovementioned relationship. Furthermore, fun HR practices translate into higher autonomous motivation and subsequent thriving at work for employees with higher preference for workplace fun. Our research contributes to the existing literature by identifying fun HR practices as an antecedent of thriving at work and revealing the psychological mechanisms through which fun HR practices affect employees' thriving at work. The practical implications, limitations, and future research avenues are also discussed.

AbstractResearch findings concerning the effects of perceived overqualification on task performance are mixed. To reconcile the disparate findings, drawing on person‐environment theory, we propose cynicism toward the job and constructive deviance as contrasting dual pathways that explain the negative and positive effects of perceived overqualification on task performance and employee creativity. We also examine the moderating effects of dual‐focused transformational leadership (TFL) on the relationships between perceived overqualification and the two mediating mechanisms. We test this model using data collected from 469 employees and their 135 supervisors via two‐wave surveys. The results support the negative and positive mediating mechanisms. In addition, based on one field study and two online experiments, we find that individual‐focused TFL mitigates the relationship between perceived overqualification and cynicism toward the job, but that team‐focused TFL enhances the relationship between perceived overqualification and constructive deviance.

AbstractThis research investigates the impact of algorithmic management on worker behaviors, focusing on workers' commitment to service quality and referral tendencies. Drawing upon the job demands‐resources model, we argue that high levels of algorithmic management could create hindrance demands that impede service quality and demotivate referral behaviors. We propose that high workload, as a challenge demand, buffers the negative effects of algorithmic management on worker outcomes. We find support for our proposed research model in an experiment with a sample of 1362 platform‐based food‐delivery riders. We also conduct a qualitative study with 21 riders, which provides a more nuanced understanding of how algorithmic management affects workers' attitudes, behaviors, and referral tendencies.

AbstractAlgorithmic HR systems are becoming a more prevalent interface between organizations and employees. Yet little research has examined how automated HR processes impact employee motivation. In a three‐wave study (NTime1 = 401; NTime2 = 379; NTime3 = 303), we investigated the motivational effects of HR systems that automatically capture—and make decisions based on—employee performance, and whether these effects depend on employee attributions regarding the organization's intended use of its automated HR metric system. Additionally, we test whether these motivational states affect employee task prioritization and emotional exhaustion. Results show that employees whose organizations use algorithmic HR systems, and who also attribute managerial control as intent to that system, experience higher levels of extrinsic motivation at work. This, in turn, predicts greater prioritization of metricized tasks and de‐prioritization of non‐metricized tasks. Conversely, employees who believe the purpose of algorithmic HR systems is to provide them with constructive feedback are more likely to experience intrinsic motivation, leading to reduced feelings of emotional exhaustion, greater prioritization of metricized tasks, but reduced non‐metricized behavior de‐prioritization. These results illustrate the critical importance of employee sensemaking around algorithmic HR systems as a precursor to the impact of such systems on employee motivation, behavior, and well‐being.

AbstractIn the present article, we propose the concept of the HR function's relational activities and examine its influence on the firm's human capital resources (HCRs) and performance. Integrating insights from various streams of research in strategic human resource management (HRM) and strategic human capital, we develop a relational perspective of the HR function and propose the relational activities as the HR function's advisory and informative activities toward its internal stakeholders (i.e., line managers, employees, and senior managers) to help the stakeholders meet their goals and needs. In our framework, we theorize how the HR function's relational activities lead to superior firm performance by enhancing the firm's HCRs and identify the firm's strategic HR systems and human capital losses as factors that complement and necessitate the HR function's relational activities, respectively. Using a five‐wave, nationally representative panel dataset covering 1415 firm observations, we find robust support for our hypotheses: the HR function's relational activities were positively related to HCRs, which was more pronounced when coupled with high levels of strategic HR systems and human capital losses. The HCRs, in turn, transmitted the effects of the relational activities on the firm's subsequent operational and financial performance. Overall, these findings develop strategic HRM theory by contributing a more comprehensive conceptualization of the HR function's role in the strategic HRM process and by revealing its effects on firm performance along with key moderators.

AbstractDrawing on gender role and gender queuing theories, we employ a multi‐stage process model to investigate demand‐ and supply‐side drivers of gender promotion gaps and to explore variations in these gaps across different business units within an organization. Analyzing 9 years of personnel records from a multiunit European bank, we find that the gender promotion gap is influenced by both supply‐side and demand‐side factors. Specifically, women are less likely than men to express a motivation to change to a new job or move to a different unit within the bank. Those who do express such motivation are as likely as men to be reassigned to new roles, but their moves are less likely to constitute promotions than are men's moves. Furthermore, gender promotion gaps vary significantly within the organization itself. Business units with the most significant gaps are in regions that have fewer available organizational positions to move into, diminishing women's motivation to seek such moves, and have jobs with numerous incumbents, decreasing women's chances to get a new job or secure a promotion upon doing so. This study extends gender role theory by creating a unified theoretical model that incorporates both employee and employer gender role perceptions as drivers of promotions. It contributes to gender queuing theory by demonstrating the theory's relevance to promotion outcomes.

AbstractWe propose a new work design model, SMART work design, that identifies five higher order categories of work characteristics, including stimulating work characteristics (task variety, skill variety, information processing requirements, and problem‐solving requirements), mastery work characteristics (job feedback, feedback from others, and role clarity), autonomous work characteristics (decision‐making autonomy, timing autonomy, and method autonomy), relational work characteristics (social support, task significance, and beneficiary contact), and tolerable work characteristics (low levels of: role overload, work–home conflict, and role conflict). Higher order confirmatory factor analysis of working participants provided initial evidence of this structure (Study 1, N = 1107), which was replicated in an additional dataset (Study 2, time 1, N = 709). To provide further evidence, we examined Study 2 data across three waves (N = 573) to show that each higher order factor at time 1 predicted time 3 job satisfaction either directly or via the theorized time 2 mediators (challenge appraisals, work meaningfulness, fulfillment of relatedness needs, and activated negative affect). In Study 3 (N = 108), employees' scores on specific higher order variables correlated with leader ratings of performance in the expected ways. The SMART work design model provides a unique integrating and multidimensional theory of work design that extends beyond existing models. The model can be used to facilitate the synthesis of research knowledge and guide scholars and practitioners to diagnose and address contemporary work design challenges.

AbstractNegative performance feedback is vital for stimulating employees to enhance their performance despite resulting in stress and adverse work outcomes. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI)‐enabled automated agents have gradually assumed certain functions led by human leaders, such as providing feedback. Drawing from regulatory focus theory, we propose that AI‐based feedback systems can serve as a “remediation” tool, effectively mitigating employees' apprehensions about receiving negative feedback. In two studies, we found that for employees who fear losing face, AI‐based negative feedback motivates promotion‐focused cognition—motivation to learn—representing a learning mechanism to promote job performance and impedes their prevention‐focused cognition—interpersonal rumination—reducing the depletion needed for job performance. These findings present novel perspectives on using AI in performance feedback.

AbstractUsing an institutional lens, we investigate the isomorphic effects of both external and internal contexts on human resource management (HRM) systems. Our analysis uses data from 4768 organizations across 34 countries to focus on the similarities in HRM systems. By employing distance matrices, a commonly adopted method in geographic science, we find that both external and internal contexts affect (dis)similarities in HRM systems. Organizations in similar environments exhibit more similar HRM systems. Furthermore, we find that the devolvement of HRM activities from HRM to line management reduces the similarity of HRM systems across organizations. By contrast, a strong strategic position of HRM does not yield a comparable effect. Our study's main contributions include elucidating the multifaceted relationship between context and HRM, highlighting the HRM department's role in this relationship, clarifying the context–HRM connection via the concept of isomorphic pressures, and illustrating the use of distance matrices as tool with great explanatory power for the analysis of similarities among HRM phenomena.