Mutual Gains? Health‐Related HRM, Collective Well‐Being and Organizational Performance

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12446
• Author: Heike Bruch,Hendrik Huettermann

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

Mutual Gains? Health-Related HRM, Collective

Well-Being and Organizational Performance

Hendrik Huettermann and Heike Bruch

University of St . Gallen

ABST RACT Research on the effect s of HR management on employees’ psychological well-bein g

has yielded inconclusive re sults. Moreover, prior works remain unclear on whether human

resource practices s pecifically aimed at en hancing employee well-being also benef it organi-

zational performa nce. Building on signali ng theory and conservation of resources t heory,

our study investig ates the relationsh ip between health-related human resource ma nagement

(HHR M), employees’ collective well-being (i n terms of collective emotional exhaust ion and

collective engagement) and org anizational performance. Resu lts from a multi-sourc e field

study of top management team member s, HR representatives, and 15,952 employees in 88

organizat ions reveal a positive i ndirect relat ionship between HH RM and employees’ collective

well-being, which i s mediated by employees’ positive stress mindset. I n addition, we find this

positive indir ect association to depend on the level of transformat ional leadership climate in

organizat ions. Final ly, our finding s also show a positive indirect relat ionship between HH RM

and company performance, med iated by employees’ positive stress mindset and collec tive

engagement.

Keywo rds: employee well-bein g, health-related huma n resource management,

organizat ional performance, stress m indset

INTRODUCTION

Given the increasing number of work-related psychological illnesses, creating a psycho-

logically healthy workplace is considered a major challenge for organizations to susta in

a long-term competitive advantage (Grawitch et al., 2015). One factor that is considered

to play a key role for enhancing employee well-being is human resource (H R) manage-

ment (Guest, 2017).

However, research on the effects of HR management on employees’ psychological

well-being has yielded inconclusive results (for two comprehensive reviews, see Peccei et al.,

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:6 September 2019

doi:10. 1111/j om s. 124 4 6

Address for re prints : Hendrik Huetter mann, Univer sity of St. Gal len, Instit ute for Leadership a nd Human

Resource Mana gement, Dufourstra sse 40a, 900 0 St. Gallen, Switz erland (hendrik .huettermann@u nisg.ch).

104 6 H. Huettermann and H. Bruch

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

2013; van de Voorde et al., 2012). Moreover, prior works have developed contradic-

tory theoretical perspectives on the relationship between HR management, employee

well-being and company performance: On the one hand, a ‘mutual gains’ perspective

considers HR management to benefit both employee well-being and organizational per-

formance (e.g., Appelbaum et al., 2000). On the other hand, a ‘conflicting outcomes’

view suggests that well-being and performance are distinct organizational goals, which

can be achieved by different sets of HR practices (e.g., Godard, 2004).

Existing empirical studies thus provide ambiguous evidence and call for further

research to investigate how (i.e., through what mechanisms) and when (i.e., depending

on what contingencies) HR management may positively relate to employee well-being

(van de Voorde et al., 2012). Moreover, empirical analyses are needed to assess whether

HR practices that specifically aim at enhancing employee well-being are also positively

associated with organizational performance (Guest, 2017; Paauwe et al., 2013). Our

study addresses these research gaps by shedding light on the relationship between HR

management, employee well-being and organizational performance. For this purpose,

we develop and test an organizational-level model that is reflective of the ‘mutual gains’

perspective and investigates the role of health-related human resource management

(HHRM), a system of HR practices and principles that is specifically aimed at maintain-

ing and promoting employees’ psychological well-being.

Guided by general frameworks for the effects of HR management (Nishii and Wright,

2008; Ostroff and Bowen, 2000) and building on signaling theory (Spence, 1973) as well

as conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1988), we posit that HHRM positively

relates to employees’ positive stress mindset — that is, the extent to which employees

in an organization hold the mindset that stress can be a source of personal g rowth,

well-being, and performance (Crum et al., 2013). Such a positive stress mindset, in turn,

is assumed to be positively linked to collective well-being in terms of lower levels of

collective emotional exhaustion (i.e., employees’ shared perceptions of how emotionally

drained their colleagues are from their work; Gonzalez-Morales et al., 2012) and higher

levels of collective engagement (i.e., employees’ shared perceptions of how physically,

cognitively, and emotionally invested their colleagues are in their work; Barrick et al.,

2015). Due to the beneficial association with employees’ positive stress mindset and col-

lective well-being, we expect HHRM to also show a positive indirect relationship with

company performance (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Over view of mediation model