High‐commitment work systems and middle managers' innovative behavior in the Chinese context: The moderating role of work‐life conflicts and work climate

• Author: Yan J. Jiang,Yang Chen,Guiyao Tang,Fang L. Cooke
• Date: 01 September 2018
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21922

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

High-commitment work systems and middle managers'

innovative behavior in the Chinese context: The moderating

role of work-life conflicts and work climate

Yang Chen

1

| Yan J. Jiang

2

| Guiyao Tang

3

| Fang L. Cooke

4

1

School of Business Administration,

Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

2

School of Business, Nanjing University,

Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

3

School of Management, Shandong University,

Jinan, Shandong, China

4

Department of Management, Monash

University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Correspondence

Guiyao Tang, School of Management,

Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong

250010, China.

Email: tangguiyao2010@gmail.com

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China,

Grant/Award Number: 71502142; 71672148;

71725001; National Social Science Foundation

of China, Grant/Award Number: 15BGL148

This study advances research on high-commitment work systems (HCWSs) and organizational

innovation by examining how the configuration of middle managers' work–family issues

(i.e., work–family conflict and work climate for sharing family concerns) shape the relationship

between HCWSs and innovation performance. Using a matched sample of senior management

team members, middle managers, and frontline employees from 113 Chinese manufacturing

firms and two waves of survey, we found that HCWSs are associated with enhanced levels of

middle managers' innovative behavior, an association that improves innovation performance.

The results also show that high levels of work–family conflict weaken the relationship between

HCWSs and innovative behavior, but can be attenuated when a work climate better facilitates

the sharing of family concerns. The study contributes to the knowledge of the role of HCWSs

and contextual conditions of their effects in enhancing organizational innovation performance,

with specific implications for the Chinese context.

KEYWORDS

China, high-commitment working systems, innovation performance, middle managers, work

climate, work–family conflict

1|INTRODUCTION

Extant research has accentuated the significance of strategic human

resource management (HRM) in enhancing organizational perfor-

mance (e.g., Zhou, Hong, & Liu, 2013; also see Jackson, Schuler, &

Jiang, 2014, and Kaufman, 2015 for a comprehensive review). Contin-

uous innovation with the support of HRM is also seen as vital in sus-

taining firms' competitiveness in an increasingly competitive business

environment (e.g., Cooke & Saini, 2010). As one popular category of

strategic HRM, a firm's high-commitment working system (HCWS) is

defined as “the configuration of human resource [HR] practices that

value employees and build a relational environment in which

employees are committed to the organization”(Zhou et al., 2013,

p. 266).

1

Past research shows that HCWSs can activate employees'

motivation to engage in working tasks that enhance organizational

performance. However, adopting an HCWS is increasingly considered

necessary but insufficient for motivating employee behavior and thus

enhancing the innovation performance of a firm (e.g., Chang, Jia,

Takeuchi, & Cai, 2014).

2

For example, Chang et al. (2014) argued that

studying HCWSs alone as a condition of creativity may not fully cap-

ture the overall picture of conditions leading to enhanced creativity,

and other environmental conditions are important. George (2007) also

suggested that future research might benefit from looking at how con-

textual conditions interact with each other to influence creativity.

The contingent approach can be introduced for better under-

standing the conditions under which HCWSs motivate employee

behavior to enhance innovation performance. This approach of con-

tingency emphasizes the importance of fit among a firm's strategic

HRM posture and other constructs of interests (Wei, Liu, & Herndon,

2011). A considerable amount of work has focused on the moderating

role of environmental and organizational factors (e.g., Wang, Guidice,

Tansky, & Wang, 2010). In addition, social relationships are seen as an

important intervening factor between HCWSs and employee behavior

(Björkman & Lervik, 2007). However, the majority of studies investi-

gating socio-relational factors have focused on social relationships

within the organizational boundary (e.g., Chang et al., 2014; Kim &

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21922

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:1317–1334. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1317

Wright, 2010). Few studies have examined how employees' family

lives can interfere with the innovation outcomes of their firms'

HCWSs (Paustian-Underdahl & Halbesleben, 2014). The limited exist-

ing empirical evidence suggests that although “high-performance”

practices are related to negative job-to-home spillover, not all prac-

tices are so equally (White, Hill, McGovern, Mills, & Smeaton, 2003).

Thus, identifying work–family conditions under which particular rela-

tionships enhance or constrain HCWSs and employee behavior repre-

sents an important research agenda.

A number of studies have revealed that the effects of human

resource (HR) practices may vary across different employee groups

(e.g., Boon & Kalshoven, 2014; Lepak & Snell, 1999). However, limited

attention has been paid to middle managers as a key group of

employees in translating HCWSs into enhanced organizational innova-

tion performance. Middle managers have been considered to be

important internal agents with substantial decision-making authority

that may influence the organizational processes underpinning firm

performance (Wooldridge, Schmid, & Floyd, 2008). They are also con-

sidered to play a pivotal role in producing organizational innovation

and being closer to customers and other stakeholders and can easily

detect new ideas and mobilize resources around these new ideas

(Dutton, Ashford, & O'Neill, 1997). Accordingly, this study extends

this line of work by focusing on workplace behaviors of middle man-

agers in firms by addressing two research questions:

1. Under what conditions do middle manager behaviors contribute

to enhancing the effect of HCWSs on innovation performance?

2. Do work–family-related variables of middle managers play an

intervening role in the relationship between HCWSs and middle

manager behaviors?

Existing studies on HCWSs mainly investigate their positive

impact on organizational or team outcomes (e.g., Wei et al., 2011).

However, HCWSs may not consist of all positive outcomes of HR

practices, because the latter are, to a large extent, contingent upon

the conditions under which they are implemented and the perception

and experience of the HR practices by particular groups of employees

(Van De Voorde, Paauwe, & Van Veldhoven, 2012). Employees have

many roles and responsibilities to fulfill within and outside their work-

ing life. Few people can perform well and gain satisfaction in every

domain (e.g., Maertz & Boyar, 2011). Demands in the work domain

make it difficult for individuals to fulfill their responsibility at home

(Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). This work–family conflict has been

found to cause detrimental outcomes such as high levels of stress, tar-

diness, absenteeism, turnover intention, and low levels of organiza-

tional commitment, job satisfaction, and productivity (e.g., Allen,

Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000; Paustian-Underdahl & Halbesleben,

2014). Limited research has thus far focused on the impact of work–

family conflict on firms' HR practices. In addition, Hammer, Kossek,

Zimmerman, and Daniels (2007) proposed that work–family conflict

could be influenced through the more distal organizational work–

family climate—the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values to which a

work unit believes their organization supports and values the integra-

tion of employees' work and family lives. Bowen and Ostroff (2004)

also proposed that organizational climate, as the situation, is

important in demonstrating the strength of the HR system. However,

few studies have responded to Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) call for

studies in this direction.

As innovation performance is in part dependent upon employees'

innovative behavior, which can be affected by work climate, it is

important to examine what organizational support may be needed. To

integrate and reconcile these perspectives, we build on the premise

that work–family conflict and work climate for sharing family concerns

have contingent value and propose that optimal organizational inno-

vation performance will benefit from the fit between a firm's HCWS

and the configuration of work–family conflict and work climate for

sharing family concerns. Figure 1 presents our conceptual model.

This study offers four main contributions. First, it is one of the

first studies that examine the contextual conditions of the impact of

HCWSs. Specifically, we argue that when middle managers perceived

conflict between work and life, they do not engage in innovative

working behavior despite a high level of commitment to their firms'

HR practices. Second, we extend the HCWS literature by focusing on

the critical role of middle managers and investigating the mediating

effect of middle managers' innovative behavior on the HCWSs—

innovation performance relationship. This study expands the HCWS

literature to include middle managers' innovative behavior and helps

researchers and managers to understand how HCWSs influence inno-

vation performance. Third, Bowen and Ostroff (2004, p. 206) urged

that “HRM content and process must be integrated effectively in order

for prescriptive models of strategic HRM actually to link to firm per-

formance.”This study responds to this call by bringing together the

HCWS and work–family conflict literature, which has not been

attempted in prior research related to innovation performance. The

integration of these two research areas can direct researchers to

explore the interface between a firm's HR practices and its employees'

family lives. Fourth and finally, our study is situated in the Chinese

context and responded to calls for non-Western samples in HCWSs

and work–family studies (Casper, Eby, Bordeaux, Lockwood, & Lam-

bert, 2007). China is characterized as the context with trust and coop-

eration, and Chinese employees tend to trust in management (Kim &

Wright, 2010). In China, an HCWS is likely to be viewed as a mutually

beneficial measure that can easily bring high levels of employee com-

mitment (Kim & Wright, 2010). In addition, due to the social values in

which work and collective interest take priority over individual needs,

work demands have been found to have a stronger relation to work–

family conflict in China than in Western countries (Yang, Chen, Choi, &

Time frame:

Time 1 Time frame:

Time 2

High-commitment

work system

Middle managers’

innovative behavior

Innovation

performance

Work -fa mi ly

conict

Workclimate for sharing

family concerns Data sources

Middle managers

Frontline employees

CEOs

H1 H1

H2

H3

FIGURE 1 The conceptual model of the study

1318 CHEN ET AL.