HR practices and affective organisational commitment: (when) does HR differentiation pay off?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12013
• Author: Elise Marescaux,Luc Sels,Sophie De Winne
• Date: 01 November 2013
• Published date: 01 November 2013

HR practices and affective organisational

commitment: (when) does HR differentiation

pay off?

Elise Marescaux,Sophie De Winne and Luc Sels Faculty of Business and

Economics, KU Leuven

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 23, no 4, 2013, pages 329–345

We argue that differentiating HR practices across employees leads employees to compare their situation

with colleagues to assess the favourability of HR practice outcomes (e.g. money). These perceptions

can be negative (i.e. feeling set back), neutral (i.e. feeling treated the same) or positive (i.e. feeling

advantaged). Data from 13,639 Belgian employees showed that perceived favourability of HR practice

outcomes is positively associated with affective organisational commitment, but the relationship is

attenuated at positive levels. Thus, differentiation may be a double-edged sword as the losses among

employees feeling set back may temper, neutralise or even outweigh the benefits among those feeling

advantaged. The relationships found were especially salient for work practices (e.g. autonomy) compared

with economic practices (e.g. bonuses). Developmental practices were found to be least suited for

differentiation across employees. No evidence of a moderating role of employees’ preference for equality

(vs. differentiation) was found.

Contact: Elise Marescaux, Faculty of Business and Economics, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69,

3000 Leuven, Belgium. Email: elise.marescaux@kuleuven.be

INTRODUCTION

‘The harsh reality of managing people is that differentiation must occur, with some

employees more equal than others’ (Ulrich, 2005: 11).

With this statement, Ulrich stresses the need for differentiation in managing

employees. This is argued to boost return on investment (ROI) and allows for

employees subject to different strategies to be managed efficiently and effectively

(Lepak and Snell, 1999; Huselid et al., 2005). Moreover, as a significant task of strategic talent

management, differentiation can help organisations to adequately fill pivotal or strategic

positions in the organisation with highly competent employees, to ensure their commitment to

the organisation and to subsequently create a sustainable competitive advantage (Becker et al.,

2009; Collings and Mellahi, 2009). Finally, by tailoring working conditions to individual

interests, needs, talents or performance, valuable employees can be attracted, motivated and

retained, sustaining organisational performance (Rousseau, 2005). Yet, little empirical evidence

supports these arguments as most HRM research assumes standardisation, implying that all

employees are subject to the same HR practices (Kinnie et al., 2005). By consequence, there is

little empirical clarity on whether and why HR differentiation (i.e. differentiating HR practices

across employee groups or individual employees) benefits the organisation and in which

circumstances it does (not).

Moreover, the scarce existing research on HR differentiation solely focuses on positive effects.

A few studies on ‘i-deals’, i.e. personalised employment arrangements negotiated between

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12013

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 23 NO 4, 2013 329

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Marescaux, E., De Winne, S. and Sels, L. (2013) ‘HR practices and affective organisational commitment: (when)

does HR differentiation pay off?’. Human Resource Management Journal 23: 4, 329–345.

employee and employer (Rousseau, 2005), have shown that i-deals generate affective

commitment, personal initiative and work engagement (e.g. Hornung et al., 2008, 2010; Anand

et al., 2010). By studying employees benefiting from differentiation (i.e. employees receiving

i-deals), the potential negative impact on co-workers who may feel set back is largely ignored

(for an exception, see Lai et al., 2009). Yet, from social comparison research, we know that

employees tend to compare their work situation with others to assess the favourability of their

situation, potentially creating a group of ‘haves’ who feel to some degree advantaged as well

as a group of ‘have nots’ who feel set back (Greenberg et al., 2007). While an organisation may

reap the benefits among the first group in terms of positive attitudes, behaviour and

performance, the reverse could be true among the latter group. HR differentiation may thus

pose as a double-edged sword as its positive effect could be attenuated, neutralised or even

outbalanced.

In this article, we explore this reasoning. More specifically, we argue that in the face of HR

differentiation, employees will receive different degrees of HR practice outcomes (e.g. money,

developmental opportunities). Through social comparison they will develop perceptions

regarding the favourability of these outcomes, ranging from negative (feeling set back)

to positive (feeling favoured), which subsequently drives their affective organisational

commitment. We propose a positive but curvilinear relationship. Because a vast amount of

psychological research has shown that negative situations have a larger impact than positive

ones (Baumeister et al., 2001), we expect that the effect of negative degrees of perceived

favourability of HR practice outcomes is more pronounced than that of positive degrees.

Moreover, we believe that the degree to which perceptions of favourability concerning HR

practice outcomes influence affective organisational commitment depends on two aspects. First,

the resource distributed by an HR practice influences the type of exchange relationship

construed between employee and employer and subsequently affective organisational

commitment (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). Socio-emotional resources are more typical of a

social exchange relationship fostering affective organisational commitment than economic

resources. As such, perceptions of favourability may have larger repercussions when they

involve socio-emotional resources than economic resources. Second, how employees react to

outcomes depends largely on their distributive preference, an attitude determining which

distribution of outcomes employees prefer (Fang, 2000). We focus on employees’ preference for

equality as this contradicts the basic principle of HR differentiation, which is non-equality. We

propose that when employees prefer equality, the effect of negative degrees of perceived

favourability of HR practice outcomes is more pronounced and the effect of positive degrees

less pronounced compared with when employees prefer differentiation because it contradicts

their personal notion of fairness.

The contribution of our work is threefold. First, we explore the concept of HR

differentiation through a social comparison lens and as such, introduce a new construct, i.e.

perceived favourability of HR practice outcomes. We explore both theoretically and

empirically how these perceptions can shape affective organisational commitment. This is

important as voices are increasingly being raised in favour of differentiation while little is

yet known about its impact, especially its potential drawback. Second, by including practices

involving different resources, we can draw conclusions about which practices are more (or

less) suited to differentiate. Third, we investigate whether an individual’s preference towards

differentiation or equality plays a role, such that the impact of differentiation depends on the

profile of employees. Through these contributions, we aim to increase both the theoretical

and the empirical grasp on the impact of HR differentiation, both positive and negative, and

its success factors.

HR differentiation and affective organisational commitment

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 23 NO 4, 2013330

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.