The impact of human resource practices on employee engagement in the airline industry

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Author: Uju V. Alola,Rawan Alafeshat
• Date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2135

ACADEMIC PAPER

The impact of human resource practices on employee

engagement in the airline industry

Uju V. Alola

1,2

|Rawan Alafeshat

3

1

Faculty of Economics, Administrative and

Social Sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University,

Istanbul, Turkey

2

School of Economics and Management, South

Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, Russian

Federation

3

Faculty of Tourism Management, Eastern

Mediterranean University, North Cyprus,

Turkey

Correspondence

Uju V. Alola.

Email: uvalola@gelisim.edu.tr

The impact of recruitment and training on employees increases psychological state,

commitment, and employee attachment to the organization. Several researchers have

continuously, for several decades, investigated the effect of recruitment and selec-

tion and the robust impact on employees; nevertheless, the effect of human

resources practices on both the employees' satisfaction and retention as parameters

of the organization performance cannot be overemphasized. Drawing from Social

Exchange Theory (SET), the study identifies the significance of human resource prac-

tices (selecting and recruitment, training, and development) on employees. 277 ques-

tionnaires were collected from six private airline employees in Jordan. The hypotheses,

validity, and reliability were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The

findings indicate that proper selecting and recruitment and training have a significant

impact on organization. Also, Employee Engagement (EE) plays a mediating role on

model variables. The study further indicates that employee engagement partially medi-

ates the relationship between variables. Cross-sectional data collection was employed;

therefore, generalizing the findings should be done with caution. This study is of impor-

tance to human resources managers and policymakers to understand the significant

impact of HR practices, attracting effective and efficient employees.

1|INTRODUCTION

Recently, organizations are more interested in the internal customers,

paying apt attention to selecting and recruitment (SR) to training and

development (TD) and the managing employee engagement

(Jøranli, 2018: Sinha & Thaly, 2013). Recruitment and selection is

important for both researchers and business owners in different fields

and across the universe. According to Osemeke (2012), recruiting the

best hands in the organization, directly and indirectly, increases pro-

ductivity. Moreover, the successful selection and recruitment process

is the core duty of the human resource manager (Naveen &

Raju, 2014). Therefore, organizational productivity is determined by

the type of workers employed (Naveen & Raju, 2014). Adopting the

Social Exchange Theory (SET) opined that human resource practices

are the refection of two-sided relationship of give and take (Miles,

2012). Although, for the effective running of the organization, human

resource manager need to answer the five most important questions

of what time to recruit, which place to recruit, which source to use,

which person to recruit, and what medium to use for communication

(Box & Purcell, 2008). A hand full of eminent researchers called atten-

tion to the relationship between selection and recruitment and organi-

zational performance (Alansaari, Yusoff, & Ismail, 2019; Kanu, 2015;

Ntiamoah, Egyiri, & Kwamega, 2014), stating that organization perfor-

mance is relatively correlated with training and development, selec-

tion, and recruitment (Ekwoaba, Ikeje, & Ufoma, 2015). Additionally,

training gives employee an edge over others and increases employee

effectiveness and efficiency (see Alola, Avci, & Ozturen, 2018; Alola,

Olugbade, Avci, & Öztüren, 2019). In the view of AL-Damoe, Yazam,

and Ahmed (2012), training enhances employee capacity and indi-

rectly impacts return on investment (Aguinis & Kurt, 2009). Taking

into account the study of Tihanyi, Ellstrand, Daily, and Dalton (2000),

Partlow (1996), and Boudreau, Boswell, Judge, and Bretz Jr (2001),

organizational performance solely depends on employee performance

and trained employees perform better than untrained employees

(Olaniyan & Ojo, 2008). Relatively, Karemu, Kachori, Josee, and

Okibo (2014) found that a positive relationship exists between

Received: 13 September 2019Revised: 30 October 2019Accepted: 8 March 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2135

J Public Affairs. 2021;21:e2135.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd1of12

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2135