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Multinational enterprises are increasingly interested in improving employee engagement across diverse geographies, signifying the importance of understanding antecedents of engagement across different national business systems. This study aims to explore the relationship between an important job resource, perceived performance appraisal fairness and employee engagement in two countries: the UK and India. Critically, the mediating role of perceived supervisor support in these contrasting cultural contexts is investigated, as well as differentiating between two types of engagement: work and organization.

Drawing on a UK-based multinational enterprise operating in its home country and in India, survey data from 249 employees are analyzed.

The survey results indicate that there are positive relationships between elements of perceived performance appraisal fairness and engagement in both countries, and that supervisor support plays an important mediating role. There are, however, important differences between the two countries’ results.

Cross-sectional data from a single firm are a limitation of this study, as well as using national culture as an explanatory variable although this is not measured. Future research should attempt to measure culture, especially in India, where cultural heterogeneity is high.

The study demonstrates the importance of ensuring appropriate mechanisms in different overseas operations to achieve engagement when implementing performance appraisal.

This study expands significantly our knowledge surrounding the engagement construct by including both work and organization engagement, measured simultaneously in two contrasting national contexts. Furthermore, it highlights the value of national business systems cultural theorizing to explain differences in employee workplace experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness that despite many calls for attention to a firm’s context in considering consequences for human resource management (HRM) and performance, research progress to date has been limited at best, although promising signs of change are emerging. Moreover, what has been defined as “performance” is coming under increasing scrutiny, with a more holistic concept emerging that balances both a firm’s financial performance and employee well-being. The question remains whether this is a mutual gains or conflicting outcomes situation for the firm vis-á-vis the employee.

This paper presents a framework that facilitates a broader context-centric analysis of the HRM and performance relationship. In so doing, the authors posit that context should no longer merely be an obligatory control variable in a research design, but instead should be explicitly incorporated in both theory development and empirical model testing.

The Contextual SHRM Framework demonstrates how key organizational actors can balance competitive, heritage and institutional mechanisms to create an appropriate strategic HRM (SHRM) system capable of delivering organizational outcomes that balance financial and employee well-being outcomes, which in the long run impact societal well-being that, in turn, recreates the firm’s operating context. At the heart of the framework is an iterative process between context and the SHRM system, achieving an appropriate level of dynamic fit across the various components.

In addition to empirical research, the framework has to date been widely used in executive development training, serving as a force field analysis tool allowing simultaneous consideration of the external and internal elements of a firm’s context, key organizational actors and SHRM system outcomes. HR professionals applying the framework to their organization can add value by demonstrating the clear linkage between the business strategy, the HRM system and the firm’s operating context.

This paper is designed to encourage new directions in future research and practice. The Contextual SHRM Framework is presented as a novel tool to facilitate advancement of the HRM and performance field of study.

Based on resource-based and dynamic capabilities theorizing, this study explores how human resource analytics (HRA) can improve human resource management (HRM) performance and organizational performance, with creative problem-solving capability (CPSC) as an underlying mediator for creating value from HRA. It also explores how data quality and HRA personnel expertise act as moderators in this relationship.

Hypotheses are tested in an empirical study including 191 firms using partial least square structural equation modeling technique.

The findings confirm the direct and indirect effect of HRA use and maturity on HRM and organizational performance, as well as the mediating role of CPSC. HRA personnel expertise was found to moderate the relationship between HRA and CPSC, data quality being an important factor.

The findings contribute to the sparse evidence of value creation from HRA use/maturity on HRM and organizational outcomes, providing a theoretical logic of resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view based on the underlying causal mechanism through which HRA creates value. The study identified complementary capabilities which when combined with HRA use/maturity and CPSC result in value creation.

The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. The purpose of this article is to improve the understanding of how age affects individuals' work-related attitudes and behaviors, the authors take a life span perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).

The authors collected responses from 270 employees of multinational firms operating in India and conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the hypotheses.

The authors found that age profiles are significant predictors of work engagement. Specifically, the relationship between development opportunities and work engagement was stronger for younger employees than for older employees. However, age profiles were neither positively related to OCB nor a moderator of the job resources–OCB relationship.

The findings provide empirical evidence of the life span perspective, suggesting that age profiles influence work engagement. This is pertinent for organizations offering employees development opportunities to enhance work engagement.

Studies have explored perceptions of human resource management (HRM) system strength and how they can relate to employee-level outcomes. However, the authors understand little about the boundary conditions for such relationships. Here, the authors apply signaling theory to explain the relationship between HRM system strength and affective commitment as well as the role of an organization's communication climate and organizational collectivism.

The authors conducted an initial study among HR practitioners (N = 115) to determine their perception of HRM system strength, its outcomes and boundary conditions. The authors then conducted a second study to increase the reliability of our earlier findings by focusing on non-HR employees (N = 179).

The findings in both studies indicate that employee perceptions of HRM system strength positively and significantly relate to affective commitment. Moreover, the results show support for the moderating roles of both communication climate and organizational collectivism. These findings are novel and extend the nomological network of employee perceived HRM system strength.

These findings offer valuable practical insights regarding approaches to strengthen the relationship between HRM system strength and affective commitment. In particular, we offer practical recommendations pointing to the relevance of improving the communication climate as well as the sense of belonging within the organization (organizational collectivism).

This chapter presents a holistic view of dynamic external macro environments and their impact on internal organizational strategies. It suggests how events, and particularly major crises at the global or national level, affect organizational responses. Specifically, the authors submit that organizations adapt their strategy in line with the pressures they face from the external environment. Consequently, the day-to-day operations inside the organization change, and managers find themselves faced with new challenges in terms of how they manage their talent. By exploring critical roles that human resource (HR) professionals can play in talent management, the authors delineate several ways in which the HR department can help organizations to react to these external pressures, supporting managers in ensuring that employee behavior and values are aligned with the new organizational strategy. The objective of this chapter is not only to reflect on the HR professionals and their role in helping to manage organizational talent, as their organizations navigate the dynamic macro context, but also to stimulate further research in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between employees' perceptions of a particular subsystem of HRM practices (performance management) and their commitment to the organisation. In addition, the study seeks to examine the mechanisms by which these perceptions translate into employee attitudes and behaviours.

A total of 524 questionnaire responses were collected from four organisations in the UK.

The findings show that the link between employee experiences of high commitment performance management (HCPM) practices and their level of commitment is strongly mediated by related perceptions of organisational justice. In addition, the level of employee trust in the organisation is a significant moderator.

This is a cross‐sectional study based on self‐report data, which limits the reliability of the findings. The findings may also be specific to a particular context. However, the results by company support their generalisability.

The findings lead one to believe that it is essential to observe the actual experiences of HCPM practices and outcomes at employee level, and to consider the broader organisational context, if one is to understand their effects on performance.

When exploring the impact of high commitment work practices on firm performance, little attention has been paid to the employee perspective: employees ultimately are the recipients of an organisation's HRM practices, and as such their perceptions of these practices affect their attitudes and behaviour in the workplace.

To date, work engagement has been the domain of academics whilst organisation engagement has been the focus of practice. The purpose of this paper is to address the growing divide by exploring the construct clarity and discriminant validity of work and organisation engagement simultaneously, providing insight into how these constructs relate empirically, as well as investigating the nomological network of each.

Empirical data were collected through online surveys from 298 employees in two multinational companies. Respondents were primarily managerial and professional employees. The survey included measures of work and organisation engagement, as well as work outcomes and organisation performance.

The findings indicate that work and organisation engagement are distinct constructs, and have differential relationships with important employee outcomes (commitment, organisational citizenship behaviour, initiative, active learning, job satisfaction), and organisational performance.

The findings provide opportunities for practitioners to explore the potentially unique ways in which different types of engagement may add value to jobs and organisations.

The study takes important steps in bridging the academic/practitioner divide: the paper clearly demonstrates how the two concepts of work and organisation engagement relate to and complement each other as useful constructs for research and practice.

In light of increasing globalization of workforces, the purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating effect of country on the relationship between job resources and employee engagement.

Questionnaire responses from 19,260 employees of a large multinational financial services corporation in Mexico, the Netherlands, and the USA are analyzed using regression analyses and a study of effect sizes.

The results show that certain job resources (financial rewards, team climate, participation in decision making) positively influence engagement in all three countries. However, the study also shows distinctions between the strength of relationships between these job resources and engagement per country which are explained through cross-cultural theorizing.

National-level variations in relationships between job resources and employee engagement are evidenced, and these can be explained to a considerable extent by applying a cross-cultural theoretical lens.

The study highlights the importance for firms to be aware of and learn from the equivalence of constructs and their relationships across countries: although similar relationships were observed across the three countries studied here, the differences may be sufficient to require alternate approaches to appropriate job resources to engender engagement.

Although there has been considerable empirical investigation into the relationship between job resources and engagement, little has focussed on different national settings simultaneously.

In a review of the literature, supported by six case studies, executive development for senior managers in public and private organisations is explored in depth. The study looks at the roles and responsibilities of the chairman, CEO, executive and non‐executive directors, the required capabilities to achieve successful performance, and the related executive development activity implemented to support these. Methods of delivery, development needs analysis and evaluation are explored in case organisations to ascertain current practice. A detailed review of the leadership and governance literatures is included to highlight the breadth of knowledge required at director level. Key findings of the study include the importance of focusing executive development on capability enhancement, to ensure that it is supporting organisational priorities, and on its thorough customisation to the corporate context. Deficiencies in current corporate practice are also identified.