Knowledge that Transforms

Anti‐violence Human Resource Management (HRM) practices can be used as an organizational resource to buffer the effects of violence experienced by frontline workers. This research examines the process through which different forms of workplace violence (i.e., physical, verbal, and vicarious) impact how employees cope, and thereby their intentions to leave the profession. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we collected two waves of data ( N = 371) from police officers in Victoria, Australia, to test our proposed hypotheses. The findings demonstrated that physical violence, verbal abuse, and vicarious violence were positively associated with coping through denial. Importantly, coping through denial mediated the relationship between physical violence, verbal abuse, and vicarious violence on police officers' intention to leave the profession. Finally, anti‐violence HRM practices buffered the indirect effect of physical violence and vicarious violence on the intention to leave the profession via coping through denial, whereas no effect was found for verbal abuse. Our results therefore suggest that anti‐violence HRM practices play a pivotal role in managing incidents of violence at work against frontline workers. The findings' contributions to HRM theory and practice, as well as future research, are discussed.

In this research, we examine the common practice of employee performance rating calibration, the process in which calibration committee members discuss, compare, and potentially adjust direct supervisors' initial employee performance ratings. Calibration introduces an additional step into the performance evaluation process aimed at correcting for any incompleteness, inconsistencies, or biases in the ratings. By empirically studying archival, survey, and demographic data from 737 employees and 114 direct supervisors from our participating company, we examine the incentive conflicts between direct supervisors and the remainder of the calibration committee and their effect on the calibration process outcomes. We predict and find evidence consistent with direct supervisors being strategic in the information they share in the calibration process, which results in reduced information sharing. We also examine whose ratings are adjusted. While there is pressure on calibration committees to make sufficient adjustments, not every supervisor's employee performance ratings need to be adjusted. We find that those direct supervisors who have lower costs associated with avoiding scrutiny and defending against adjustments in the calibration process, ceteris paribus, receive fewer adjustments and end up with higher ratings, even when controlling for employee performance. Our investigation sheds light on the complexities of the calibration process, thereby providing important insights to HR managers responsible for managing the process.

This paper contributes to sustainable HRM theory, policy, and practice by applying and extending systems theory. A framing is developed and applied by triangulating data from 85 interviews with workers, managers, and other stakeholders (e.g., unions, employer representatives, charities) in adult social care, along with qualitative and quantitative secondary data sources. The findings highlight three main (un)sustainable HRM challenges shaped by inconsistencies between employment in the public and independent sectors: constrained system resources , disconnected career structures , and uneven voice patterns . The article contributes to HR theory by re‐framing “(un)sustainable HRM” to include how actors are constrained and/or supported by multi‐level relationships between systems and sub‐systems. The research advances policy and practice by proposing how more sustainable HRM approaches could be implemented.

Human resources (HR) managers struggle to manage the adverse impact‐validity tradeoff where some of the most predictive and affordable hiring procedures, such as mental ability tests, often result in lower hiring rates for racioethnic minority subgroups of candidates, thus creating legal risks due to anti‐discrimination laws. In this study, we examine whether employer‐sponsored practice testing will reduce subgroup differences in test performance by offering an equalizing preparation opportunity framework based on the tenant of access , including access to information and opportunities to perform. In a large diverse sample in an operational selection context ( N practice test = 29,626; N actual test = 18,408; N both = 5078), we found that candidates who took the practice test scored higher on the actual tests than those who did not. All candidates benefitted by receiving an accurate estimate of passing the actual test and increasing their likelihood of applying. Further, racioethnic minorities realized greater score gains than racial non‐minorities, thereby reducing subgroup mean differences and subsequent adverse impact. The results were supportive for all major racioethnic minority subgroups (Asians, Blacks or African Americans, and Hispanics), and effect sizes were meaningfully large. Finally, we examined differences in other preparation tactics (e.g., gaining additional experience, using study guides) and found that racioethnic minorities were likely to use some tactics more than racioethnic non‐minorities, but not the most predictive tactics. We conclude that HR managers should consider equalizing preparation opportunities, specifically practice testing, to help address the adverse impact‐validity tradeoff by reducing impact without abandoning valid employment tests.

Contemporary organizations are paying greater attention to improving environmental sustainability. Recognizing the value of employee engagement in enhancing sustainability, organizations emphasize the involvement of employees in environmental protection. Academic literature and anecdotal evidence have suggested that employees may come to work with pressure to engage in pro‐environmental behavior (PEB). However, researchers have overlooked how employees experience pro‐environmental pressure, leaving fundamental questions unanswered in theory building. In this paper, we introduce the concept of pro‐environmental pressure and examine the broader functioning of pro‐environmental pressure at the individual level. Drawing on the transactional theory of stress, we elucidate how this pressure could be experienced as a double‐edged sword that induces both positive and negative responses from employees. We first develop a scale of pro‐environmental pressure and assess its psychometric properties. We then conduct a field study to test the theoretical model, arguing that individuals with different stress mindsets have divergent responses. Employees with a stress‐is‐enhancing mindset are likely to appraise pro‐environmental pressure as a challenge, whereas employees with a stress‐is‐debilitating mindset are likely to appraise it as a threat. Our findings reveal that pro‐environmental pressure could have both functional and dysfunctional implications depending on employee appraisals. When pro‐environmental pressure is appraised as a challenge, employees use a problem‐focused coping strategy and respond with positive behavioral reactions, including engagement in PEB and constructive green voice. However, when pro‐environmental pressure is appraised as a threat, employees use an emotion‐focused coping strategy and respond with negative behavioral reactions, including disengagement from PEB and destructive green voice. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Employer reviews (i.e., online workplace ratings authored by employees) attract broad interest and shape the opinions of potential employees. Thus, companies face the challenge of dealing with these workplace judgments that are outside their direct control. While prevailing theoretical perspectives suggest that responding to third‐party judgments may be an effective way for companies to deal with them, they focus on responses to negative judgments that threaten companies' reputations. Based on signaling theory, we argue that employer responsiveness, signaled by an employer's first response to an employer review, serves as a mechanism of indirect control over employer reviews. Applying a difference‐in‐differences approach—a statistical technique to estimate the causal effect of the treatment (i.e., responsiveness) by comparing it to a control group without the treatment—on a sample of 298,269 reviews of 21,099 employers over 45 quarters posted on the employer review website Kununu, we hypothesize and find that compared to nonresponsive employers, responsive employers receive more diverse (i.e., variety of topics covered) and extensive (i.e., amount of information provided) employer reviews. These effects are especially pronounced in the case of negative employer reviews. Our findings can serve as a guide for employers in dealing with third‐party judgments by demonstrating that employer responsiveness is a valuable signal enhancing online review quality. We contribute to the growing body of HRM research on employer reputation on social media, a critical factor influencing recruitment and retention outcomes. Our study opens new avenues for research to explore the role of responsiveness as a strategic signal in employer brand management.

Drawing on an exemplary case of strategic HRM in a nonprofit social care provider responding to a recruitment and retention crisis, this article offers evidence for a multi‐actor, recursive model of HRM implementation. We examine how multi‐actor engagement with strategic HRM reinforces or modifies intended HRM, and how this engagement is shaped by external and internal contextual pressures in nonprofit social care organizations. Through an in‐depth qualitative study, we shed light on the internal process dynamics that not only engender a shared understanding of intended HRM strategy and practice among key organizational actors ( convergence ) but also allow for local deviation ( divergence ) that forges a more adequate response to workforce challenges. Our study contributes to theory on the social dynamics of HRM implementation within wider institutional contexts while highlighting the limits of a business‐oriented HRM system for delivering a sustainable workforce within social care.

Bonuses are notoriously used to motivate workers. How effective are they at doing so, and might there be unintended consequences? We investigated the effectiveness of bonuses based on game profitability on the motivation of video game developers by examining specific bonus characteristics that align with advice derived from expectancy theory. We also investigated if bonuses encouraged or discouraged moral engagement and corner‐cutting behavior through their effects on work motivation as conceptualized through self‐determination theory. Company data on bonus characteristics coupled with surveys from 1024 game developers in a video game company indicated that the size of the last received bonus did not influence current work motivation. Uncertain probability of getting the next bonus installment was related to a lack of motivation, while more certain probability was related to higher intrinsic motivation. The probable size of the next bonus was related to lower external regulation and to higher intrinsic motivation, contrary to predictions from most motivation theories. Both probability certainty and bonus size probability were indirectly negatively associated with moral disengagement and corner‐cutting behaviors via decreasing amotivation and external regulation. Overall, results show that the bonus system in this company had limited effects on motivation and on discouraging deviant behaviors and point to how such systems can be improved using advice from theory.

Contemporary job postings increasingly rely on visual content to attract applicants through social media platforms, calling for scholarly attention to organizational aesthetics in recruitment. This study accordingly examines the signaling function of biophilic workspace design conveyed in job posts. We integrate theorizing on organizational aesthetics and biophilia with signaling theory to posit that biophilic job posts serve a dual signaling role as both a stimulus of signal attention by eliciting a visceral response and as a signaled source of credible information by evoking an evolutionary disposed cognitive interpretation. More specifically, we model pleasure and arousal as an indicator of stimulated attention, organizational attraction and the willingness to trade pay as evaluated responses to the signal, and attributions of communal organizational traits as an intervening interpretation of the signal—consistent with the role of symbolic attributes in prospective applicant evaluation of organizations. Three primary experiments largely support our predictions. Overall, this research extends the function of aesthetic signals to organizational signaling, validates organizational aesthetics as a stimulus of directed evaluation, and expands the scope of biophilic theory in organizational research. Findings also inform the practical question of whether biophilic job posts function as a non‐pecuniary differentiator in recruitment.

Neurodiversity—an umbrella term encompassing a range of neurocognitive developmental conditions such as autism‐spectrum conditions, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders (e.g., dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and Tourette syndrome)—recognizes neurological differences as natural variations of the human brain. As management scholars increasingly explore this dimension of diversity, both researchers and practitioners are gaining a deeper understanding of the valuable contributions neurodivergent human capital can bring to the modern workplace. In this article, which serves as a primer for the special issue on neurodiversity and human resource management (HRM), we present a systematic review of the neurodiversity literature organized by employee lifecycle stage. The review synthesizes the most comprehensive practices at the intersection of neurodiversity and HRM. We then introduce the 13 articles featured in the special issue by positioning them within broader trends that emerged from our review. Moreover, we show how each article advances scholarship and practice in neurodiversity and HRM. We conclude by drawing on insights from both the review and the special issue contributions to offer recommendations for future research and practice that center on fostering more inclusive and effective HRM systems for neurodivergent individuals.