Knowledge that Transforms

The core principle in strategic human resource management (SHRM) holds that organizations gain competitive advantage from HR systems with practices that work well together (horizontal alignment) and that support overall strategy (vertical alignment). This paper develops a theory explaining how artificial intelligence integration, a tool intended to improve alignment, can unintentionally cause alignment breakdown. Drawing on SHRM theory and the process‐based model of HRM system strength, we build four propositions. We argue that AI's operational requirements weaken horizontal alignment by creating logic conflicts within HR systems, cause employee skill development to drift from strategic needs, cause employees to default to metric‐aligned behaviors, and diminish workforce value as a competitive resource. We synthesize these dynamics in a framework of four organizational states, Strategic Synergy, Contested Alignment, Strategic Fragmentation, and Algorithmic Capture that characterize firms at different stages of AI‐driven misalignment. This paper contributes a process‐based theory explaining organizational risks of AI adoption in management systems.

Underneath headlines that decree organizations are increasingly abandoning or rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in response to anti‐DEI pressures, we argue that how organizations are doing this warrants further focus. While the strategy literature speaks to tactics for addressing institutional pressures, missing in the study of how organizations address anti‐DEI pressures is consideration of how HRM systems impact and are impacted by such action. Incorporating a strategic human resource management (SHRM) view, we offer three approaches—all of which are substantiated with evidence from contemporary organizations—that range in the extent to which organizations resist or embrace anti‐DEI pressures. The common thread linking these approaches is that each one moves beyond an oversimplified emphasis on “alignment.” We do not advocate misalignment per se but underscore how the nuances embedded in each approach reflect the intentionality of organizations and how they consider contingencies (i.e., external alignment) and configurations (i.e., internal alignment) in proactively adapting HRM systems in response to anti‐DEI pressures. In advancing these views, we develop an agenda to drive future empirical research addressing the intersection of DEI backlash and HRM.

Persistent talent shortages require employers to pursue novel approaches for recruiting and retaining workers. In this paper, we investigate one such approach, that is, offering educational benefits to low‐skilled workers, a segment of the workforce that less frequently accesses such benefits. In Study 1, we examine an operational educational benefits program targeted at employees occupying low‐skilled jobs, demonstrating that program participation is associated with reduced turnover. Building upon this insight, we draw from exchange perspectives on the employee‐organization relationship to investigate how different benefit structures shape low‐skilled worker retention and why. Across two vignette‐style between‐person experiments, we compare types of educational benefit programs and find that educational benefits with little to no upfront costs—termed tuition assistance programs—are more strongly associated with reduced turnover intentions, a relationship that is partially explained by perceived organizational support for development; importantly, this type of educational benefit more clearly contributes to a social exchange relationship with the employer. This indirect relationship is stronger when potential employees perceive internal career opportunities, and this pattern of results persists across social classes (and low and high‐skilled workers). We offer practical insights for how employers may structure educational benefit programs to retain (low‐skilled) workers.

Although feedback is intended to facilitate employee effectiveness, negative feedback sometimes impedes, rather than improves, employee outcomes. We draw from Event Systems Theory to develop a conceptual model that identifies how event‐based characteristics of negative feedback (i.e., novelty, disruption, and criticality) relate to employee effectiveness (i.e., work goal progress, work withdrawal, and interpersonal helping) via two mechanisms—felt competence and cognitive depletion. Results from a 10‐week event sampling study were generally supportive of our theory, indicating that felt competence and cognitive depletion play key roles in mediating the effects of event‐based negative feedback characteristics on employee outcomes. These findings indicate that specific, event‐based characteristics of negative feedback play an important role in explaining employee reactions to such feedback, determining whether it facilitates (vs. hinders) employee effectiveness.

Despite firms' increasing experimentation with nontraditional human capital sourcing and selection approaches, our understanding of how and why these are adopted and diffuse among competitors is limited. Drawing on neo‐institutional theory, we examine how mimetic, coercive, and normative pressures influence firms' adoption of nontraditional labor market approaches. We conceptualize labor markets as “traditional” and “nontraditional” based on firms' observable human capital selection activities and investigate how competitors' prior use of nontraditional sourcing approaches (mimetic pressures), coercive pressures stemming from customer‐based demand conditions, and top manager institutional agency (the capacity of top managers to interpret and act against prevailing normative pressures) influence adoption. We further examine how field‐level performance feedback from nontraditional‐sourced human capital influences the impact of these institutional pressures and aspects of adopting these alternative sourcing approaches. Using a longitudinal dataset of Major League Baseball franchises from 1977 to 2002 and event‐history models of first adoption of non–South/Central American international player sourcing, we assess how organizational and contextual conditions affect the timing of adoption. Results indicate mimetic and coercive institutional pressures, top manager institutional agency, and field‐level performance feedback systematically influence adoption decisions. The findings contribute to our understanding of institutional drivers in firms' human capital sourcing and selection behavior and offer insights into the broader dynamics that drive the adoption of nontraditional labor market approaches across firms.

As organizations increasingly embed artificial intelligence (AI) into human resource management (HRM), research has largely examined whether and when AI is used in HRM and how such use affects internal stakeholders. Much less is known about how the allocation of final HR decision authority between AI and human shapes external stakeholders' evaluations of the focal organization. Drawing on signaling theory, this research proposes that when information about AI‐enabled HR decision authority becomes available or knowable to external stakeholders, it can function as an organizational signal that shapes organizational reputation. Across three studies, we show that when AI rather than human HR specialists holds final decision authority over consequential HR decisions, external stakeholders infer greater employee objectification, which, in turn, damages organizational reputation. This process further depends on receiver‐side heterogeneity: the effect is attenuated when perceived AI humanlikeness is higher and amplified when HR issue relevance is higher. These findings contribute to the literature on AI‐enabled HRM, organizational reputation, and signaling theory, and provide implications for how organizations integrate, govern, and communicate AI use in HRM practices.

With expanded access to remote work, employees are spending a greater share of their time working from home. As a result, work and family demands increasingly intersect during the workday, creating more opportunities for interruptions from family members. Drawing on boundary theory, we argue that family‐to‐work interruptions differ from interruptions that originate within the work domain because they require employees to navigate a cross‐domain role transition involving distinct expectations, relationships, and role demands. To advance our understanding of the affective consequences of family‐to‐work interruptions, we leverage affective events theory to examine the effect of daily family‐to‐work interruptions on negative affect at the end of the workday and, in turn, emotional exhaustion in the evening. Importantly, we assess the role of individuals' general perceptions of family‐to‐work conflict and schedule autonomy as cross‐level moderators. We find that the positive effect of daily family‐to‐work interruptions on end‐of‐workday negative affect is stronger for individuals with higher overall perceptions of family‐to‐work conflict and with lower schedule autonomy. Finally, post hoc analyses suggest that gender further shapes these relationships, with the moderating effect of family‐to‐work conflict emerging only among women and the moderating effect of schedule autonomy being substantially stronger for women than for men.

Digital visibility has become a central organizing condition in digitally mediated work, reshaping how employees are recognized, evaluated, and connected. In this conceptual paper, we theorize digital visibility as a sociomaterial HRM condition that simultaneously enables recognition and generates performative pressures. Anchored in relational cohesion theory, we develop the Digital Visibility–Belonging Paradox concept to explain why the same visibility infrastructures that make employees more observable may also weaken the relational foundations of belonging. We distinguish between authentic belonging and simulated belonging to show how digital visibility can simultaneously support felt recognition and relational connection while encouraging employees to display connection, availability, and engagement through digitally visible cues. We further identify cognitive, emotional, and structural mechanisms through which visibility shapes these divergent trajectories, as well as organizational and system‐level boundary conditions that influence whether visibility supports relational connection or intensifies performative availability. The paper contributes to HRM scholarship by repositioning visibility governance as a relational and humanistic responsibility in digitally mediated work.

The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in job recruitment has transformed recruitment practices. Little is known, however, about how applicants react to AI‐based rejection. Drawing on appraisal theory, we propose that applicants rejected by AI tend to appraise the rejection as others' responsibility, leading to negative emotions and adverse reactions against the organization. Using a person‐centered approach and mixed‐methods design in two studies, we identify four distinct profiles based on the combination of outward‐focused negative emotions (OFNE) and inward‐focused negative emotions (IFNE). Specifically, we argue and test that introducing a human manager to review AI‐based rejection can soothe rejected applicants. Our findings show that involving human touch can shift applicants' profiles, leading to better reactions toward the organization. Theoretical and practical implications for rejected applicant reactions in the context of AI‐based recruitment processes are discussed.

Women's earnings have risen, yet work–family conflict (WFC) remains persistent, raising questions about how income differences within couples shape these experiences. We examine the partner pay gap—the difference in earnings between partners—as a household financial structure that conditions work‐family experiences and introduce a gendered relative resources framework to theorize why relative earnings carry different meanings for women and men. Analyzing longitudinal dyadic data from over 4000 German couples, we use a polynomial regression approach embedded within a longitudinal actor‐partner interdependence model. Results show that larger partner pay gaps are associated with higher WFC for women, but not for men. These gendered effects are stronger in more traditional normative contexts, including when women hold traditional gender role beliefs, are parents, or receive lower partner support. We further show that WFC operates as a chronic, accumulating stressor that mediates the relationship between the partner pay gap and women's long‐term well‐being. Post hoc analyses suggest a front‐loaded pattern, with women's WFC increasing most sharply at modest deviations from traditional earning arrangements and leveling off as pay gaps widen. We replicate our findings in a U.S. sample, supporting cross‐national generalizability. Together, these results highlight household earning arrangements as structural conditions that shape whether HRM systems can be effectively translated into reduced WFC, underscoring the importance of integrating household financial dynamics into HRM theory and practice.