HR orientations and HR department effectiveness in Vietnam

Purpose Human resource (HR) philosophy and an organization’s commitment to employees (OCE) are important components of a human resource management (HRM) system, yet the influences of these variables on the effectiveness of HRM implementation has been less evident. Similarly, few studies have examined the effect of intended and implemented HR practices on line managers’ perceptions of HR department effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to examine how these factors could result in a positive evaluation of HR department effectiveness in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 consisted of 405 line managers and the authors used this sample to test the proposed research model. Study 2, comprising 192 line managers, was used to validate the findings from Study 1. Findings The authors found empirical evidence of how HR managers should leverage their relationships with line managers to enhance HR department effectiveness in a developing economy such as Vietnam. Research limitations/implications As data were from line managers in one point in time, this study could be affected by common method bias. However, the authors conducted three common method variance checks and the analyses showed that this issue was not a major concern. Future studies could extend the sample of respondents by collecting information from CEOs, employees, and HR managers. Originality/value This study contributes to the extant literature empirical evidence of determinants of HR department effectiveness. First, the study shows the simultaneous impacts of HR philosophy and OCE on the actual implementation of HR practices. Second, the authors provide an understanding of line managers’ evaluation of HR department effectiveness through their experience with implemented HR practices

Cynicism about change, work engagement, and job satisfaction of Public Sector Nurses

This paper uses the job demands‐resources theory to examine the consequences of changes on nursing work. Data were collected from 220 public sector nurses in Australia to test the model. We conducted a two‐wave data collection process where independent variables (organisational change, workload, job control, nursing administrative stressors, cynicism about organisational change, and demographic variables) were collected in Time 1. The dependent variables (nursing work engagement and job satisfaction) were collected 6 months later. Changes to nursing work were found to cause high workload and an increase of administrative stressors that leads to an increase in nurses’ change cynicism. Job control was needed to cope with the increase in workload and reduction in cynicism about change. Cynicism about organisational change was found to have a direct negative effect on nurses’ engagement which in turn was found to negatively impact job satisfaction. Our contribution to theory and practice arises from the discovery that the connections between organisational change, work environment variables, and job outcomes of nurses are more complicated than previous research suggests. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed

Social support as buffer for workplace negative acts of professional public sector employees in Vietnam

Much has been known about negative outcomes of workplace bullying in public sectors in low power distance contexts like the UK, USA, and Australia. Little is known about workplace bullying in non-Western contexts characterized by high power distance, bureaucracy, and collectivism. This study advances Conservation of Resource (COR) theory with empirical evidence that the acquisition of social support buffered the indirect impact of bullying on work engagement in a sample of 207 Vietnamese public sector professionals. This research suggests the provision of contextual resources is critically important to enhance employee positive experience of work in the face of workplace bullying

Opening the black box: The mediating roles of organisational systems and ambidexterity in the HRM-performance link in public sector organisations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how HIWS may shape organisational capabilities, in particular organisational ambidexterity (OA) – the ability to be both adaptable to the wider world, and internally aligned so that existing resources are used well. Given the demands on public agencies to manage conflicting objectives, and to do more with less in increasingly complex environments, this paper improves our understanding of how HIWS can contribute to public sector performance. The paper sheds light inside the black box of the HIWS/organisational performance link. Design/methodology/approach This multi-level quantitative study is based on a survey of 2,123 supervisory staff, and 9,496 non-supervisory employees in 56 government organisations. Findings The study identifies two paths to organisational performance. The first is a direct HIWS performance link. The second is a double mediation model from HIWS to organisational systems, to OA and then performance. Practical implications A focus on developing HIWS provides an alternative means to public sector performance, than restructuring or other performative activities. Originality/value This is one of the few studies that explore how HIWS can develop collective as well as individual capabilities. Studies in the public sector are particularly rare

Reframing commitment in authentic leadership: Untangling relationship–outcome processes

Affective organizational commitment is theorized and empirically tested as a key mediator between authentic leadership and desirable employee outcomes. The results of a two-wave survey of 830 business people in Australia support a serial mediation model of authentic leadership efficacy. Followers\u27 perceptions of authentic leadership behavior influence their personal identification and affect-based trust in the leader, which in turn are mediated by affective organizational commitment to positively influence their work engagement and job satisfaction. These findings reinforce previous work that positions personal identification and affect-based trust as the two primary mediating mechanisms of authentic leadership. This paper extends prior research by demonstrating the important role of followers\u27 affective bonds with their organization in the operation of authentic leadership, moving beyond the dyad in our understanding of follower outcomes

Reframing commitment in authentic leadership: Untangling relationship–outcome processes

Affective organizational commitment is theorized and empirically tested as a key mediator between authentic leadership and desirable employee outcomes. The results of a two-wave survey of 830 business people in Australia support a serial mediation model of authentic leadership efficacy. Followers\u27 perceptions of authentic leadership behavior influence their personal identification and affect-based trust in the leader, which in turn are mediated by affective organizational commitment to positively influence their work engagement and job satisfaction. These findings reinforce previous work that positions personal identification and affect-based trust as the two primary mediating mechanisms of authentic leadership. This paper extends prior research by demonstrating the important role of followers\u27 affective bonds with their organization in the operation of authentic leadership, moving beyond the dyad in our understanding of follower outcomes

Which work characteristics predict employee outcomes for the public-sector employee? An examination of generic and occupation-specific characteristics

The wide-ranging changes that have occurred in the public sector over recent years have placed increasing demands on public-sector employees. A survey of employees within a relatively commercially-oriented public-sector organization in Australia was used to test a demand-oriented generic model of employee well-being and a variety of situation-specific variables. The presence of support at work and the amount of control an employee had over their job were found to be key predictors of employee-level outcomes. Perceptions of pay and the perception of a lack of human resources (HR) were also found to predict employee outcome variables. The results emphasize the impact that middle managers and HR managers can have in terms of reducing the detrimental employee effects that can be caused by the introduction of new public management (NPM) and the potential for a positive impact on employees. In particular, public-sector managers can use the design of jobs and the development of social support mechanisms, such as employee assistance programmes, to maintain, if not improve, the quality of working life experienced by their employees. More broadly, this study has found that the job strain model is a useful tool in a public-sector environment and is likely to be of increasing utility with the continuing introduction or consolidation of NPM over time. Managing these issues in the new public sector could be a key means of protecting the key resource of the Australian public sector - the employees.<br /

Modelling the Effects of Intangible Capabilities on ERP Implementation

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is well recognised as a key technological infrastructure that facilitates business operations and growth in a dynamic business environment. Implementation of ERP system however is mirrored by numerous problems, a fact well cited in many academic studies. Research addressing the reasons for ERP implementation problems has identified a plethora of success factors. Following a similar research direction, we leveraged on the resource based view (RBV) to investigate the effects of firms’ capacity to deploy intangible resources with valuable and inimitable characteristics (termed as intangible capabilities) on successful ERP implementation. Three intangible capabilities were assessed, i.e. governance, knowledge and relationships. Using data collected from a survey with service firms in Malaysia, we found evidence that relationships capability effect towards successful ERP implementation was direct and significant. Further analysis revealed that governance capability reinforces the effects of knowledge and relationship capabilities toward successful ERP implementation. The empirical findings suggest that successful ERP implementation lie at the firms’ capacity to deploy and reconfigure their intangible capabilities of valuable and inimitable characteristics to create reinforcing superseding effects. We conclude that governance capability plays the antecedent platform role to strengthen the effects of knowledge and relationships capabilities on ERP project’s success

Workplace bullying, psychological hardiness, and accidents and injuries in nursing: A moderated mediation model

© 2021 Teo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Workplace bullying are prevalent among the nursing workforce. Consequences of workplace bullying include psychological stress and workplace accidents and injuries. Psychological hardiness is proposed as a buffer for workplace bullying and psychological stress on workplace accidents and injuries. This study adopted the Affective Events Theory and Conservation of Resources Theory to develop and test a moderated mediated model in two field studies. Study 1 (N = 286, Australian nurses) found support for the direct negative effect of workplace bullying on workplace accidents and injuries with psychological stress acting as the mediator. The mediation findings from Study 1 were replicated in Study 2 (N = 201, New Zealand nurses). In addition, Study 2 supplemented Study 1 by providing empirical support for using psychological hardiness as the buffer for the association between psychological stress and workplace accidents and injuries. This study offers theoretical and empirical insights into the research and practice on psychological hardiness for improving the psychological well-being of employees who faced workplace mistreatments

Participation in change, job characteristics, and hedonic well‐being of senior public managers: The moderation effect of change information

This study contributes to Hobfoll\u27s Conservation of Resources theory by testing a moderated mediation model of the relationship between participation in change and senior managers’ hedonic well‐being. Using data collected from 266 Australian senior managers employed in the Commonwealth and State public sector, we tested the interaction of participation in change and change information with job satisfaction, an example of hedonic well‐being at work. Findings from the path analysis produced two new insights. First, both participation in change and information about change are key resources that senior managers can deploy to protect and enhance their job satisfaction. Second, information about change has a buffering effect on the indirect relationship between participation in change and job satisfaction through job control. These two findings have practical implications indicating that it is important to train and equip senior managers in the adoption of effective strategies to acquire job resources in assisting them deal with change induced job demands