The turn to employees in the measurement of human resource practices: A critical review and proposed way forward

• Author: Jaap Paauwe,Marc Veldhoven,Riccardo Peccei,Susanne Beijer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12229
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021

METHODOLOGY REVIEW

The turn to employees in the measurement of

human resource practices: A critical review and

proposed way forward

Susanne Beijer

1

|Riccardo Peccei

2

|Marc van Veldhoven

3

|

Jaap Paauwe

3

1

Department of Management and

Organisation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2

School of Management and Business, King's

Business School, London, UK

3

Department of Human Resource Studies,

Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Correspondence

Susanne E. Beijer, Department of

Management and Organisation, Vrije

Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105,

1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Email: s.e.beijer@vu.nl

Abstract

Although initially studies examining human resource

management (HRM)–outcome relationships only used

management‐based ratings of HR practices, arguments have

been advanced in favour of using employee‐based ratings.

To examinethis, a systematic analysisof HRM–outcome stud-

ies published between 2000 and 2017 is performed, which

shows that over time studies have indeed increasingly made

use of employees as respondents to measures of human

resource (HR) practices. An in‐depth analysis of these mea-

sures of perceived HR practices revealed that various prob-

lems and issues can be identified when critically reviewing

these measures. It is observed that considerable idiosyncrasy

exists in measures of perceived HR practices, coupled with a

lack of transparency in how these measures a re often reported

in existing studies. Also, a mixture of evaluative and descrip-

tive items creates concerns about jingle fallacies in extant

research and in turn about the validity of HRM–outcome

results. Recommendations are provided to further advance

the measurementand conceptualisation of this coreconstruct.

KEYWORDS

appraisal, construct clarity, HR practices, pay, performance

management, recruitment

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

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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

Received: 29 June 2017 Revised: 10 January 2019 Accepted: 15 January 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12229

Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 1

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

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2019 The Authors. Human Resource ManagementJournalPublished by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Hum Resour Manag J.2021;31:1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 1

1|INTRODUCTION

The human resource (HR) practices construct is central to the HR management (HRM) literature as a large number

of studies focus on establishing a relationship between HR practices or systems of HR practices and various out-

comes at both the individual and organisational levels. Determining the appropriate source for collecting information

about and measuring HR practices, therefore, is a central issue in HRM research. For the large majority of survey‐

based research, this question essentially seems to boil down to a choice between using either management‐based or

employee‐based ratings of HR practices (with important and valuable exceptions of studies including both types of

reports, e.g., Takeuchi, Lepak, Wang, & Takeuchi, 2007; Den Hartog, Boon, Verburg, & Croon, 2013). Historically,

early studies of the relationship between HRM and outcomes all made use of managerial reports of HR practices

(e.g., Huselid, 1995; Ichniowski, Shaw, & Prennushi, 1997; MacDuffie, 1995). Over the past 20 years or so, however,

a number of important arguments have been advanced in support of the use of employee ratings explicitly designed

to measure what are commonly referred to in the literature as employee perceptions of HR practices or perceived

HR practices for short (Allen, Shore, & Griffeth, 2003; Kehoe & Wright, 2013; Nishii & Wright, 2008; Purcell &

Kinnie, 2007).

In principle, a move to using employee rather than managerial HR ratings, linked to the notion of perceived HR

practices, represents a significant conceptual and methodological shift in HRM research and would, therefore,

deserve close scrutiny and attention. In practice, however, we know little about the extent to which the arguments

in favour of studying perceived HR practices have actually been taken up by researchers and whether there has

indeed been an increase over time in studies focusing on employee rather than management reports of HR prac-

tices. In addition, to the extent that there has been a shift of this kind in HRM–outcomes research, we lack a clear

understanding of the precise nature of the employee rated measures that are used. The present study seeks to

address these gaps in our understanding of the potential shift that has taken place in the way in which the HR

practices construct is measured and conceptualised in HRM research. Specifically, on the basis of a systematic anal-

ysis of all HRM–outcome studies published between 2000 and 2017 in 10 reputable US‐and UK‐based manage-

ment and HRM journals, we have three main aims in this study. First is to map the development over time of the

sources of data used to measure HR practices in order to determine the extent to which there has indeed been a

shift away from management to employee ratings in survey‐based HRM–outcome research. To the extent that

such a shift has occurred and/or is occurring, our second aim is to examine in greater detail the nature of the mea-

sures that are used to assess the perceived HR practices construct with a view to identifying key conceptual and

methodological problems involved in the current usage of employee ratings in HRM research. In doing so, we focus

on key issues relating to the clarity and consistency of the way in which perceived HR practices are conceptualised

and measured in extant research. In particular, we focus on the tendency to conflate factual versus more subjective

and evaluative measures and underlying conceptualisations of the HR practices construct and on the implications

that this has for the understanding of the HRM–outcomes relationship and ultimately, therefore, for the cumula-

tion of knowledge in this area. Our third and final aim is to look ahead and identify key steps that can be taken

to address some of the main problems and issues highlighted in our analysis relating to the operationalisation

and conceptualisation of the perceived HR practices construct, including important lines of further research and

investigation in this area.

In this context, it is important to emphasise that even though in this study we focus specifically on employee‐based

measures of HR practices, this should not be taken to mean that employee‐based measures are necessarily to be

preferred over managerial reports. The debate regarding the relative merits of employee versus managerial reports of

HR practices (see, e.g., Delery & Shaw, 2001) is not our main focus of interest here. Also, we do not aim to argue that

either employees or managers provide more accurate reports of HR practices and are thus more or less valuable

respondents to HR practice items. Instead, the current research is designed to examine trends in the measurement of

HR practices and to provide a novel analysis of the nature of employee‐based measures of HR practices that have been

used in extant research.

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