Human resource management–well‐being–performance research revisited: Past, present, and future

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12254
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Riccardo Peccei,Karina Van De Voorde
• Date: 01 November 2019

REVIEW ARTICLE

Human resource management–well-being–

performance research revisited: Past, present, and

future

Riccardo Peccei

1*

| Karina Van De Voorde

2*

1

King's Business School, King's College

London, United Kingdom

2

Department of Human Resource Studies,

Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Correspondence

Karina Van De Voorde, Department of

Human Resource Studies, Tilburg University,

Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Email: f.c.v.d.voorde@uvt.nl

Abstract

The authors provide an up-to-date theoretically based

qualitative review of research dealing with the

relationship between HRM, employee well-being, and

individual/organisational performance (HRM-WB-IOP

research). The review is based on a systematic critical analy-

sis of all HRM-WB-IOP studies (N= 46) published in 13 core

HRM and management journals in the 2000 to 2018 period.

The authors first identify different theoretical models of the

HRM-WB-IOP relationship, which they then use to map

research in the area. The results show that mutual gains

conceptualisations play a dominant role in extant HRM-

WB-IOP research, at the expense of alternative conflicting

outcomes and mutual losses models, which are also shown

to receive very limited empirical support across the 46 stud-

ies. As part of this mapping exercise, the authors identify

important knowledge gaps in the area and conclude by set-

ting out a number of key recommendations for future

research to address these gaps.

KEYWORDS

employee well-being, HRM, individual and organisational

performance, qualitative review

The references of the 46 studies included in our review can be found in the Appendix.

*Both authors contributed equally and names appear in alphabetical order.

Received: 5 April 2019 Revised: 28 June 2019 Accepted: 7 July 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12254

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2019 The Authors. Human Resource Management Journal Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;29:539–563. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 539

1|INTRODUCTION

Over the past 20 years or so, there has been growing interest in the effect that human resource management (HRM)

systems have not only on organisational performance but also on employee outcomes including, in particular, various

aspects of employee well-being (WB; Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, & Kalleberg, 2000; Godard, 2001a; Guest, 2002;

Jackson, Schuler, & Jiang, 2014; Wright & Boswell, 2002). As part of this growing strand of so-called employee-

centred HRM research (Peccei & Van De Voorde, 2019), HRM scholars have focused not only on the effect that

HRM systems have on WB as an important issue in its own right (Guest, 1999) but also on WB as a key mechanism

that may help to explain the effect of HRM systems on various aspects of both individual and organisational perfor-

mance (Peccei, 2004). Our interest here is in that important and growing body of HRM research that focuses

explicitly on the relationship between HRM, WB, and individual and/or organisational performance (IOP), HRM-WB-

IOP research for short, rather than in studies that are primarily concerned with the impact of HRM on either well-

being or performance.

To our knowledge, the last major reviews of HRM-WB-IOP research were those conducted by Van De Voorde,

Paauwe, and Van Veldhoven (2012) and Peccei, Van De Voorde, and Van Veldhoven (2013). The bulk of the studies

covered in these reviews was published before 2010. Since then, many more HRM-WB-IOP studies have been

published. Given this growing interest, a systematic review of research in this area is, we believe, both timely and

important. As we explain more fully below, in terms of HRM, our interest here is in studiesthat focus on multiple sets

or systems of HR practices, rather than on individual practices. In line with previous reviews, in terms of WB, the

interest is in studies that consider any form of either psychological or so-called “happiness”well-being (e.g., positive

affect, job satisfaction, and affective commitment) or of health-related well-being (e.g., job stress, burnout, and anxi-

ety; Grant, Christianson, & Price, 2007; Warr, 2007). Similarly, in terms of performance, we also take quite a broad

view and consider studies that have focused on any major form of either individual performance (e.g., in-role and

contextual job performance) or organisational level performance (e.g., unit productivity and financial performance).

Based on these broad parameters and coverage, the aim of the present qualitative review is two-fold. First is to

provide an up-to-date and systematic theoretically based critical overview of extant research in the area as a basis

for mapping existing theoretical and empirical knowledge and understanding of the HRM-WB-IOP relationship. Sec-

ond, based on this mapping exercise, is to identify key knowledge gaps and, therefore, avenues for future research.

The aim here is to help structure theoretical and methodological debate in the area by setting out a clear set of

options and lines for future HRM-WB-IOP research.

2|THE HRM-WB-IOP RELATIONSHIP: THEORETICAL MODELS

The relationship between HRM, WB, and IOP has been conceptualised in a number of different ways in the extant

literature. In principle, there are literally scores of ways in which these three variables might be related depending,

for example, on the strength and direction of the relationships between them and on whether the links involved are

positive or negative. In practice, however, extant studies have focused on a small subset of possible HRM-WB-IOP

models. In particular, the primary interest to date has been in the role that HRM plays in terms of both WB and IOP.

Hence, the dominant focus has been on “HRM-driven”models of the HRM-WB-IOP relationship, where the direc-

tion of causality is assumed to go from HRM to either WB or IOP or both. Hence, it is on this family of HRM-driven

models that we focus on here.

Here, as part of our systematic review of HRM-WB-IOP research, we start by providing a brief theoretical over-

view of the area by considering the main types of HRM-driven models that have been proposed and tested in extant

studies. In particular, we identify three main types of HRM-driven models and consider the basic logic underpinning

each type: full mediation, partial mediation, and parallel outcomes models of the HRM-WB-IOP relationship. As

shown in Figure 1, within each main type, it is possible to distinguish a number of more specific models depending

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