Cross‐level effects of support climate: Main and moderating roles

• Author: Sean A. Way,Amy Wei Tian,Riki Takeuchi
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21891
• Date: 01 September 2018

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Cross-level effects of support climate: Main and moderating

roles

Riki Takeuchi

1

| Sean A. Way

2

| Amy Wei Tian

3

1

University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson,

Texas

2

Monash University, Monash Business School,

Australia

3

Curtin University, Curtin Business School,

Australia

Correspondence

Riki Takeuchi, Naveen Jindal School of

Management, University of Texas at Dallas,

800 West Campbell Rd, SM 43, Richardson,

TX 75080-3021.

Email: Riki.Takeuchi@utdallas.edu

Using a sample composed of 701 food and beverage managers nested in 120 units and

40 Asian hotel properties, in the current study we investigated the effects of unit high-

performance work system (HPWS) use and unit support climate on individual unit members'

human resource outcomes (job performance behaviors: in-role and organizational citizenship

behaviors). The results support the hypothesized relationships among unit HPWS use, unit sup-

port climate, individual affective commitment, and individual job performance behaviors. The

current study's findings illuminate the ways (e.g., mediation and moderation) in which the unit

support climate advances positive organizationally relevant individual-level human resource

outcomes. Findings, implications, and limitations as well as avenues for future research are

discussed.

KEYWORDS

commitment, culture and climate, performance management, strategic HR

1|INTRODUCTION

Human resource management (HRM) scholars (e.g., Becker & Huselid,

1998; Huselid, 1995; Way, 2002) have delineated a high-

performance work system (HPWS) as a set of distinct but interrelated

HRM practices including selective staffing, continuous training, devel-

opmental performance appraisals, information sharing and involve-

ment in decision making, and equitable and performance-based

rewards. Together, these HRM practices are postulated to engender

positive organizationally relevant human resource outcomes such as

employee attendance (e.g., Vermeeren et al., 2014; Way, Lepak,

Fay, & Thacker, 2010), retention (e.g., Gardner, Wright, & Moynihan,

2011; Way, 2002; Way et al., 2010), and organizational citizenship

behaviors (e.g., Messersmith, Patel, Lepak, & Gould-Williams, 2011).

However, consistent with a central dogma in the extant HRM

research literature that psychological climates and outcomes are pre-

cursors of human resource outcomes, the extant HRM research

(cf. Chuang & Liao, 2010; Gardner et al., 2011; Messersmith et al.,

2011; Way & Johnson, 2005; Zacharatos, Barling, & Iverson, 2005)

indicates that the impact of HPWS use on positive organizationally

relevant human resource outcomes is not direct but instead via the

following mediating mechanism (causal chain): HPWS use engenders

positive psychological climates and outcomes and, in turn, positive

human resource outcomes.

In response to Wright and colleagues' (e.g., Wright & Boswell,

2002; Wright & Nishii, 2013) call for HRM research that integrates

micro and macro HRM perspectives, a few cross-level HRM studies

have emerged examining the mediating mechanisms through which

the use of an HPWS at the establishment, department, or unit level

affects the psychological and/or human resource outcomes of indi-

vidual employees. For example, Takeuchi, Chen, and Lepak (2009)

investigated the mediating effect of establishment-level concern for

employees' (support) climate on the relationships between

establishment-level HPWS use and the psychological outcomes (job

satisfaction and affective commitment) of individual establishment

members. Then again, Messersmith et al. (2011) investigated the

mediating effects of individual department members' psychological

outcomes (individual-level psychological empowerment, job satisfac-

tion, and organizational commitment) on the relationship between

department-level HPWS use and organizational citizenship behaviors

of individual department members (a positive individual-level human

resource outcome).

Eden (2002) underscored the importance and potential substan-

tive contributions of replicating existing empirical inquiries to the

management research literature. We concur with Jiang, Takeuchi, and

Lepak (2013) that given the small number of published cross-level

HRM empirical inquiries concerning mediating mechanisms, construc-

tive replications and extensions afford a fruitful avenue for future

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21891

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:1205–1218. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1205