Understanding Employees’ Perceptions of Human Resource Practices: Effects of Demographic Dissimilarity to Managers and Coworkers

• Author: Songbo Liu,Kaifeng Jiang,Jia Hu,David P. Lepak
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21771

Human Resource Management, January–February 2017, Vol. 56, No. 1. Pp. 69–91

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21771

Correspondence to: Songbo Liu, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing,

China 100872, Ph: +86-10-62513013, Fax: +86-10-62513427, E-mail: songbo.liu@163.com.

rationale of the performance effect of HR practices

is that organizations can achieve strategic objec-

tives by using HR practices to direct employee

behaviors (e.g., Jiang, Lepak, Hu, & Baer, 2012;

Messersmith, Patel, Lepak, & Gould-Williams,

2011; Takeuchi, Lepak, Wang, & Takeuchi, 2007).

From a managerial perspective, strategic HRM

research is valuable for understanding the extent

to which HR practices can influence organiza-

tional performance. For example, a meta-analysis

UNDERSTANDING EMPLOYEES’

PERCEPTIONS OF HUMAN

RESOURCE PRACTICES: EFFECTS

OF DEMOGRAPHIC DISSIMILARITY

TO MANAGERS AND COWORKERS

KAIFENG JIANG, JIA HU, SONGBO LIU,

AND DAVID P. LEPAK

Strategic HRM researchers have increasingly adopted an employee perspective

to understand the infl uence of HR practices on employee outcomes and have

called for studies to explain variability in employees’ perceptions of HR prac-

tices. To address this research need, we used the social information processing

perspective to examine the contextual infl uence of managers and coworkers on

employees’ perceptions of HR practices and explore demographic dissimilarities

as boundary conditions of the contextual infl uence. Conducting research in two

organizational settings, we found that both manager-perceived and coworker-

perceived HR practices were positively related to employees’ perceptions of HR

practices. The results also revealed that employee demographic dissimilarity

to coworkers in terms of age and organizational tenure weakened the positive

relationship between coworker-perceived and employee-perceived HR practices.

However, the relationship between manager-percei ved and employee-perceived

HR practices was not infl uenced by demographic dissimilarities. © 2015 Wiley

Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: perceptions of HR practices, demographic dissimilarity

Over the past three decades, numerous

strategic human resource management

(HRM) studies have substantiated the

benefits of investing in human resource

(HR) practices. Researchers have dem-

onstrated that HR practices intended to improve

employee competence, motivation, and opportu-

nity to perform are positively related to organi-

zational performance (e.g., Delery & Doty, 1996;

Guthrie, 2001; Huselid, 1995). A fundamental

70 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2017

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

Even though there

is a long-standing

assumption that

employee-related

factors act to link

HR practices to

firm performance

outcomes,

surprisingly few

studies have taken

into account of the

role of HR practices

as experienced by

individual employees.

strategic HRM researchers: Why do employees

exposed to the same HR practices report their per-

ceptions of HR practices differently? What factors

shape employees’ perceptions of HR practices?

Under what conditions, are employees’ HR per-

ceptions more or less likely to be influenced by

those factors? Without clear answers to this set of

questions, it is difficult for organizations to under-

stand and manage employees’ HR perceptions.

Understanding the variations in employees’

perceptions of HR practices is also related to the

concept of the strength of the HR system. Bowen

and Ostroff (2004) introduced this construct and

argued that firms need to establish a strong HR

system that sends consistent and unambiguous

messages to help employees share a common

understanding of what attitudes and behaviors

are expected and rewarded. This shared percep-

tion is extremely important if firms want to

enhance desired organizational goals through

accumulated employees’ attributes. Without a

strong HR system, employees may construct their

own understanding of HR practices, which may or

may not be consistent with organizational inten-

tions. Consequently, a large variation in employ-

ees’ perceptions of HR practices is likely to exist

and thus makes it difficult to achieve organiza-

tional strategic goals through employees’ collec-

tive efforts and behaviors. Given the importance

of employees’ shared perceptions of HR practices,

it is urgent to understand when employees are

more likely to interpret HR practices similarly

among themselves and with important others in

organizations.

Researchers have recently started to devote

effort to understanding how employees experi-

ence and perceive HR practices. For example, Den

Hartog and colleagues (2013) identified commu-

nication quality between managers and employ-

ees as a moderator between manager-perceived

and employee-perceived HR practices. This focus

is not surprising due to the important role which

line managers play in translating and implement-

ing HR practices in contemporary organizations

(Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007). However, research-

ers have pointed out that managers are not the

only source through which employees can get

access to HR information; other contextual fac-

tors such as coworkers may also influence how

employees perceive HR practices due to their social

interactions and common experiences within the

same work environment (Nishii & Wright, 2008).

Viewed together, the current study highlights the

potential for integrating multiple sources of HR

information (i.e., HR perceptions of managers and

coworkers) to understand employees’ perceptions

of HR practices.

of 92 studies revealed that one standard devia-

tion increase in high-performance work systems

(HPWS) was related to a .20 standard deviation

increase in firm performance (Combs, Liu, Hall,

& Ketchen, 2006).

Despite the progress in the macro-level stra-

tegic HRM research from a managerial focus,

growing attention has been recently paid to

understanding the effect of HR practices from an

employee perspective (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004;

Lepak & Boswell, 2012; Nishii & Wright, 2008;

Paauwe, Wright, & Guest, 2013). The rise of this

research stream stems from a criticism that con-

sideration of employees’ actual experience of HR

practices in previous strategic HRM research has

been lacking. Even though there is

a long-standing assumption that

employee-related factors act to link

HR practices to firm performance

outcomes, surprisingly few stud-

ies have taken into account of the

role of HR practices as experienced

by individual employees. This omis-

sion is critical, as several studies have

recently shown that it is employees’

perceptions and experiences of HR

practices rather than actual HR prac-

tices or manager-rated HR practices

that have a closer relationship with

employees’ behaviors and outcomes

(e.g., Aryee, Walumbwa, Seidu, &

Otaye, 2012; Den Hartog, Boon,

Verburg, & Croon, 2013; Jensen,

Patel, & Messersmith, 2013; Kehoe

& Wright, 2013; Liao, Toya, Lepak,

& Hong, 2009), reinforcing the need

to include employees’ perceptions

in strategic HRM research, especially

when examining the impact of HR

practices on employee outcomes.

Those recent studies from the

employee-based perspective suggest

that employees may not perceive HR practices as

reported by managers, and different employees

may perceive the same set of HR practices in a vari-

ety of ways and thus have different perceptions of

HR practices from each other as well as from their

organizations’ intentions (Nishii & Wright, 2008).

For example, focusing on employees’ percep-

tions of HR practices, Liao and colleagues (2009)

reported that manager-perceived HR practices were

not significantly related to employee-perceived HR

practices after controlling for demographic char-

acteristics, and 83% of the variance in employ-

ees’ perceptions resided among employees within

the same work units. Consequently, such empiri-

cal evidence raises important questions faced by