Well‐being‐oriented human resource management practices and employee performance in the Chinese banking sector: The role of social climate and resilience

• Author: Brian Cooper,Timothy Bartram,Fang Lee Cooke,Jue Wang
• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21934

HR SCIENCE FORUM

Well-being-oriented human resource management practices

and employee performance in the Chinese banking sector:

The role of social climate and resilience

Brian Cooper

1

| Jue Wang

2

| Timothy Bartram

3

| Fang Lee Cooke

1

1

Department of Management, Monash

University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2

School of International Business,

Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics, Chengdu, China

3

School of Management, RMIT University,

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Correspondence

Jue Wang, Professor, School of International

Business, Southwestern University of Finance

and Economics, Chengdu, China.

Email: juewang8236@swufe.edu.cn

Drawing upon positive psychology and a social relational perspective, this article examines the

relationship between well-being-oriented human resource management (HRM) practices and

employee performance. Our multilevel model examines relationships among collectively experi-

enced well-being-oriented HRM practices, social climate (characterized by trust, cooperation,

and shared codes and language that exist among individuals within the organization), employee

resilience, and employee (in-role) performance. Based on the two-wave data obtained from

561 employees and their managers within 62 bank branches in 16 Chinese banks, our multilevel

analyses provide support for our four hypotheses. First, we found a positive relationship

between well-being-oriented HRM practices and social climate. Second, social climate mediated

the relationship between well-being-oriented HRM practices and employee resilience. Third, we

found a positive relationship between resilience and employee performance. Finally, employee

resilience mediated the relationship between social climate and employee performance. This

study is one of the first to unpack the social mechanisms through which well-being-oriented

HRM practices increase development of resilience and subsequent employee performance at

the workplace, namely through influencing group feelings of social climate.

KEYWORDS

Chinese banking sector, employee performance, employee resilience, social climate,

well-being-oriented HRM practices

1|INTRODUCTION

Despite the continued interest in human resource management

(HRM) research and its impact on individual and ultimately organiza-

tional performance (Boxall, Ang, & Bartram, 2011; Guest & Conway,

2011; Kehoe & Wright, 2013), there still remain large gaps in our

understanding of the mediating mechanisms through which HRM

leads to sustainable and increased performance (Jiang, Takeuchi, &

Lepak, 2013). HRM systems are designed to enhance employee skills,

commitment, and ultimately performance (Boxall & Macky, 2007;

Datta, Guthrie, & Wright, 2005; Guest & Conway, 2011; Paauwe,

Wright, & Guest, 2013). Our article builds on a recent call by Jiang

et al. (2013) to further examine the mediating mechanisms across mul-

tiple levels of analysis to extend the academic and practitioner under-

standing of the process through which HRM may impact

performance. It also responds to Guest's (2017) call for a new theoret-

ical approach to enhancing employee well-being through HRM. Guest

(2017) conceptualizes well-being-oriented HRM practices as designed

to promote investment in employees (e.g., training, development, and

learning), provision of engaging work (e.g., jobs with appropriate work-

load, role clarity and employee control, and information sharing), a

positive social and physical environment (e.g., employment security

and teams), employee voice (e.g., extensive two-way communication

between management and employees), and organizational support

(e.g., participative and supportive management).

Guest (2017, p. 22) argues the “search for a link between HRM

and performance has been pursued at the expense of concern for

employee well-being”and “what is therefore needed is a different

approach to HRM that is more likely to enhance employee well-being

but which may also offer an alternative route to high performance.”

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21934

Hum Resour Manage. 2019;58:85–97. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 85