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The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model drawing together and integrating research from employment relations (ER), human resource management (HRM) and organizational behaviour (OB) to identify how high-performance work systems (HPWS) encourage voice behaviour.

The authors identify shortcomings in research on the relationship between HPWS practices and employee voice behaviour, attributable to the disparate conceptualization of voice across management disciplines. The authors then present a conceptual model using the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework to theorize how the ER climate influences the design of the HPWS and subsequently how the HPWS encourages voice behaviour. Practical implications and recommendations for future studies are provided.

The mutual gains ER climate will influence the design of the HPWS; in turn the HPWS' practices will influence line manager AMO to manage voice and the employees' AMO to engage in voice behaviour, resulting in the encouragement of both employer and employee interest forms of voice.

The HPWS-voice behaviour interaction model sheds light on the types of HR practices organisations can implement to optimize employee voice behaviour.

The conceptual model demonstrates how ER, HRM and OB factors influence voice behaviour within a HPWS, which has not previously been considered by voice scholars. The integrated conceptual model encourages a multidisciplinary approach to studying employee voice in future research.

The aim of this study is to explore and unpack the notion of lateral voice within the context of a Chinese hospital.

A qualitative design was used, involving interviews of 24 medical personnel from a public hospital in mainland China. This included two focus groups (eight participants each) of physicians and nurses, and eight individual interviews with managers, including a chief nurse and directors of the medical centre.

The findings reveal that in top-down contexts with a respect for hierarchy, direct and vertical voice is discouraged but lateral voice fills this gap and can lead in some circumstances to a pathway to collective vertical voice. Interestingly, the study finds that fear of damaging relationships with peers may also discourage lateral voice in some cases, leading to silence altogether. Contradictory lateral voice outcomes arising from employees working within this context are discussed.

The study makes an original contribution to voice literature through exploring an understudied voice target, that is, voicing to peers. In doing so, the study demonstrates the importance of lateral voice as an important component of voice behaviour.

Existing research has ignored the perspectives of frontline managers (FLMs) in relation to the support they receive. This study aims to understand the extent to which and how other organisational actors support FLMs in their implementation of performance.

This article used a qualitative method (57 semi-structured interviews) in two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the types of support provided to FLMs. The interviewees came from various levels and the hierarchical sampling frame allowed for comparisons to be made across the cases.

The authors found that the HR department, superiors and peers signalled to FLMs the custom and practice of performance management (PM) that led to the FLMs not prioritising their PM responsibilities. Notably, the focus of the FLMs was on meeting operational needs rather than the PM process.

The authors add to the literature by examining the how the support from other organisational actors signalled to FLMs the importance of PM within their work group. This paper also explores how FLMs seek support and the type of support they want in their role.

The implementation of performance management is the responsibility of managers; more importantly, a key part of a frontline manager's role is ensuring that frontline employees are performing by meeting organisational goals. Existing research has shown a lack of focus on the role of frontline managers in the implementation of performance management systems despite plenty of research on the separate topics of frontline managers and performance management. This article aims to understand how frontline managers connect the intended performance management system, through components and processes developed by the human resources department and higher levels of management, with their employees' performance.

This study used a qualitative method, conducting semi-structured interviews with 57 participants from two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the interaction between the formal and informal performance management systems.

The authors found that frontline managers used the formal and informal performance management systems in the organisation to manage the demands of their role. Notably, the expectations that superiors and subordinates have heavily influences how the frontline managers choose to implement their performance management responsibilities.

The article uses systems theory to illustrate and explain the complex and dynamic nature of PM in practice through the FLM's implementation of the formal and informal PM systems. The primary contribution of the study is through demonstrating under what situations do frontline managers use the formal and informal performance systems in a complementary manner within the constraints placed on them.

Exposure to high-trauma work has been associated with negative outcomes for individuals and organisations. Support for these employees can buffer and protect against mental health problems. Frontline managers (FLMs) are well placed to provide for employee support needs but are often not effective in doing so. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand barriers to provision of four different types of social support as identified by House (1981) by FLMs to employees in a high-trauma workplace.

This qualitative study investigates three Australian ambulance service organisations, including 72 interviews.

Nine barriers to support are identified that can obstruct the provision of optimum employee support. These relate to the FLM themselves, the workplace context and employee-centric factors.

This paper is a single industry case study; further complexity may exist in other high-trauma industries. Future research should consult policy makers to develop strategies to address the barriers to FLM support.

FLMs are critical support persons as they are well placed to provide many employee support needs. Emotional support is the foundation for facilitating all other types of support to employees but results here indicate it is often lacking for workers in high-trauma workplaces for a range of individual and organisational barriers that operate in isolation and combined.

This paper juxtaposes House’s (1981) support framework with study findings to provide a model of the barriers to optimal employee support. This model contributes to a reconceptualisation of the relationship between employee and direct manager that is particularly pertinent for high-trauma contexts.

Paramedics' work environment is constantly changing and unpredictable. Controlling environmental risks is difficult for the HR department and requires support of external systems such as unions and policymakers. Acknowledging environmental complexity, and the interaction of external systems, this study examines how the HRM system manages and responds to violence against paramedics.

Data were collected from three Australian state ambulance services. Detailed accounts from 72 semi-structured interviews are supplemented by 1,216 phone surveys demonstrating the prevalence of assault.

Reporting very high levels of assault against paramedics from the survey data, the authors discuss situational risk factors identified by interviewees in the immediate physical environment and broader social context. The authors detail HRM practices adopted by each case and identify how gaps in the HRM system are addressed by other external, industry-level and state/federal-level systems in a multi-layer response to assault against paramedics.

Identification of individual and situational risk factors and consequences for paramedics enables more targeted prevention, intervention and response. Young and less experienced paramedics are perceived to be at greater risk of assault. Importance of HRM practices particularly de-escalation training is highlighted. Gaps in HRM system require external input, particularly via law enforcement and public education.

This study adopts a holistic and contextualised perspective of HRM to improve understanding of violence against paramedics at work. Combining open systems and multi-stakeholder approaches, the authors adapt Beer et al.'s (1984) seminal Harvard Model of HRM. The authors propose a conceptual map which illustrates relationships between situational risks, key systems, HRM practices and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to: first, explain why a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens arises from the digital society; second explore some core elements of the competition between the new model of the provision of welfare services and the classic ideal model of the professionals’ provision of welfare services; third, suggest why it is most likely that the two models of the provision of services are combined into a symbiotic co-evolution scenario; and fourth, examine why and how this symbiotic co-evolution scenario results in new participatory spaces for the main actors associated with the provision of welfare services.

The review of the literature examines how the new model for the provision of welfare services facilitated by big data challenges the traditional professional model for the provision of welfare services. The authors use the Danish case to illustrate a number of themes related to this looking at the hospital sector as an example.

The proposition is that a symbiotic co-evolution scenario will emerge. A mix of the classic ideal model and practice of the service professionals’ provision of services and the digital society’s model of the provision of services is the most likely scenario in the years to come. Furthermore, Data-driven management (DDM) as an integrated key element in a symbiotic co-evolution creates (opens up) participatory environments and spaces for the main actors and agents associated with the provision of welfare services to the citizens.

DDM’s impact on the provision of welfare services is still being realised and worked out, and more empirical research is needed before it is possible to point at the most likely scenario. However, according to the authors’ analytical framework, the institutional logics perspective, as presented in Section 2, a symbiotic co-evolution is most likely such that DDM will constitute a new logic within the provision of welfare services on the basis of which citizens as end-users could be provided with welfare services, but it is not likely that the new logic of DDM can displace the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services. Therefore, the new logic of DDM will be combined with and integrated into the existing logics within service provision, such as the Weberian bureaucracy, the Street-Level Bureaucracy, the New Public Governance and the Market. In spite of this, DDM can successfully be promoted by international management consulting firms, as a management concept which can remedy all the problems of the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services to citizens.

As a consequence of this, new relationships among professionals, data analytics, (middle) managers and citizens will be created regarding the provision of welfare services. Considering the new participatory environments and spaces and the new relationships among the classic service professionals, the data analytics, the (middle) managers and the citizens as end-users, the provision of welfare services may become an arena for negotiation of a new future model of the provision of welfare services to citizens.

The digital society has emerged from and developed further via: digitising, online information in almost real time, algorithms, data-informed decision-making processes, DDM and, ultimately, big data. The authors expect to see further digitising, more sophisticated algorithms and more big data. The authors suggest that a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens will emerge from the development of the digital society. The authors also suggest that this new model will compete with the classic model of the provision of welfare services.

The purpose of this paper is to take a serious look at the relationship between joint consultation systems at the workplace and employee satisfaction, while at the same time accounting for the (possible) interactions with similar union and management-led high commitment strategies.

Using new, rich data on a representative sample of British workers, the authors identify workplace institutions that are positively associated with employee perceptions of work and relations with management, what in combination the authors call a measure of the “good workplace.” In particular, the authors focus on non-union employee representation at the workplace, in the form of joint consultative committees (JCCs), and the potential moderating effects of union representation and high-involvement human resource (HIHR) practices.

The authors’ findings suggest a re-evaluation of the role that JCCs play in the subjective well-being of workers even after controlling for unions and progressive HR policies. There is no evidence in the authors’ estimates of negative interaction effects (i.e. that unions or HIHR negatively influence the functioning of JCCs with respect to employee satisfaction) or substitution (i.e. that unions or HIHR are substitutes for JCCs when it comes to improving self-reported worker well-being). If anything, there is a significant and positive three-way moderating effect when JCCs are interacted with union representation and high-involvement management.

This is the first time – to the authors’ knowledge – that comprehensive measures of subjective employee well-being are being estimated with respect to the presence of a JCC at the workplace, while controlling for workplace institutions (e.g. union representation and human resource policies) that are themselves designed to involve and communicate with workers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in the degree of innovation in employment relations (ER) between emerging and established firms,

A large national telephone survey (N=1,416) of both emerging (<5 years) and established firms was conducted.

Emerging firms were more casualised, less unionised, and experiencing higher levels of market expansion and unpredictability. Despite these differences, younger firms showed otherwise remarkable similarity to older firms across a range of ER practices, and both categories showed a reliance on business networks, rather formal training, for ER knowledge. While introducing ER changes more rapidly than older (and larger) firms, they were converging towards a suite of ER practices similar to that adopted by older firms. The results suggest that, if anything, established firms may have been engaged in greater innovation in more unusual ER practices.

Only managers were surveyed. The data are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. As the study was undertaken in only one country, replication in other settings would be desirable.

The results raise major doubts about the notion that new firms represent the cutting edge of innovation, and highlights the degree to which newer firms match or mimic older firms’ ER architecture.

The authors consider stage theories of human resource management (HRM) to explore how new companies experiencing high levels of growth face the dual pressures of youth and expansion.

The firms in this study are a sub-group of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) called “gazelles”. While this is a qualitative study, participants were chosen through a modified random sampling approach that ensures that the sample is representative of a regional population of gazelle firms.

New companies experiencing high levels of growth face the challenge of expansion while structurally immature. While the selected companies were ill-equipped in formal knowledge of HR they reacted to rapidly changing conditions and were forced to organisational flexibility meaning that few absolute rules were adopted.

Gazelle literature tends to focus on impediments to growth, rather than HR staples such as recruiting and retaining staff. But the studied cases showed an acute appreciation by gazelle managers of the value of motivated, skilled staff able to turn their hand to the fluctuating requirements of the fast-growing firm and a desire to establish formal HR mechanisms as part of the response to the stress of growth.