AbstractHuman resource (HR) practices are potent in shaping workplace social relationships, which play a crucial role in employees' well‐being. While the role of formal relationships (i.e., relationships based on prescribed work roles) has received relatively more research attention, little is known about the nexus between HR practices, informal relationships at work and employee well‐being. Drawing on social interdependence theory, we conducted two studies to investigate how high commitment work systems (HCWS) affect employee well‐being through workplace friendship, beyond the effects of formal interpersonal relationships. In Study 1, using time‐lagged data from a sample of 253 full‐time employees, we found that workplace friendship, a type of informal relationship at work, mediated the relationship between HCWS and employee well‐being. In addition, task interdependence strengthened the relationship between HCWS and workplace friendship as well as the indirect effect of HCWS on employee well‐being. In Study 2, we replicated these findings and extended them to multiple forms of well‐being using multilevel data collected at three time points from 310 employees in 61 organizations. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings as well as future research directions are discussed.

This study investigated the factors that underlie the relationship between work–family conflict (WFC) and women engineers' intention to leave the occupation. The study draws from three theories: Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, turnover theory, and Rhodes and Doering's (1983) integrated model of career change. We proposed that both work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW) influence women's intention to leave an engineering occupation by decreasing their commitment to the occupation. Using insights from the above theories and models, we further examined how perceptions of support from the organization changed the relationship between commitment to the occupation and intention to leave the occupation, as well as how conflict between work and family was related to intention to leave the occupation. We tested our predictions using time‐lagged data from a sample of 245 women engineers. The results revealed that occupational commitment mediated and explained the positive relationship between FIW and occupational turnover intentions but not the relationship between WIF and occupational turnover intentions. In addition, perceptions of organizational support influenced the relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions and also the indirect relationship between FIW and occupational turnover intentions. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings as well as future research directions are discussed.