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High-performance work practices (HPWPs) have been well documented within private organisations in developed country economies. Such practices, however, remain under-investigated in the public sector and in emerging economies. The purpose of this paper is to work towards filling this void, by empirically evaluating HPWP within an Indian public sector undertaking (PSU), also the world’s largest commercial public sector employer: the Indian Railways (IR).

The authors investigate whether the practices implemented in this organisation are consistent with the idea of HPWPs, and analyse how they are influenced by different stakeholders and ultimately associated with different indicators of organisational performance. The authors focused on six railway zones and interviewed a total of 62 HR practitioners.

The results show that most practices implemented are aligned with the idea of HPWPs, despite the existence of context-specific unique practices. Furthermore, the authors identify the influence of multiple stakeholders in decision making concerning different practices. The authors additionally found that the measurement of performance goes beyond financial indicators and several context-specific non-financial indicators are identified and their social importance is reiterated.

Theoretically, this paper utilises and contributes to the resource-based view of firms by identifying a distinctive bundle of competencies in human resources through HPWS in the IR.

The aim of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of the field of international human resource management (IHRM) research by tracing its evolutionary development over a 24-year period. The study seeks to understand how the field has progressed by considering historical research themes and their subsequent integration into more recent scholarly work, thereby identifying current and emerging research trends.

This paper employs bibliometric analysis to examine the evolutionary path of IHRM research from 1995 to 2019. A dataset of 1,507 articles from journals specializing in IHRM, international business and general management was created. Analysis at the keyword, thematic and network levels was conducted to identify trends, historical context and the interrelatedness of research themes.

The analysis reveals that IHRM research has gone through several phases of thematic focus, from initial emphasis on cultural differences and expatriate management to more recent topics like global talent management and digital transformation. Earlier research themes continue to be incorporated and re-contextualized in modern scholarship, highlighting the field’s dynamic nature.

This paper is one of the first to use a bibliometric approach to systematically examine the evolution of IHRM research. It not only provides a historical perspective but also outlines future research trends, incorporating the institutional logic perspective. The findings offer deep insights that are valuable for researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in the development of IHRM research and its practical implications.

This paper aims to explore the dynamics of workplace relationships between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs) in international development organisations (IDOs) through the lens of the social comparison theory. These relationships are likely influenced by the way human resource management (HRM) practices are implemented among individuals from both groups.

The auhtors used an inductive approach and analysed qualitative data from ten expatriates and twenty HCNs employed by five IDOs in Nigeria, a risk-prone context.

The findings demonstrate that both expatriates and HCNs perceive that the HRM practices implemented by IDOs are more favourable to expatriates. This leads to further social comparisons between members of both groups, affecting their workplace interactions.

The way expatriates and HCNs perceive and act towards these differential practices matters for the operations of IDOs. As such, the authors recommend that IDO management may consider acknowledging diversity in their workforce, enact inclusive practices and make deliberate investments on learning opportunities and maximise the continued investments in expatriate use.

This study contributes to expatriation literature by clarifying the extent to which the enactment of differential HRM practices in a risk-prone context can exacerbate upward social comparisons and significantly influence working relationships. The authors explore this outside the context of multinational enterprises, focusing on IDOs that play a valuable role in local societies.

Outsourced information technology (IT) workers establish two different employment relationships: one with the outsourcing company that hires them and another with the client organization where they work daily. The attitudes that an employee has towards both organisations may be influenced by the interpretations or attributions that employees make about the reasons behind the human resource (HR) management practices implemented by the outsourcing company. This paper aims to propose that commitment‐focused HR attributions are positively and control‐focused HR attributions are negatively related to the affective commitment to the client organization, through the affective commitment to the outsourcing company.

These hypotheses were tested with a sample of 158 highly skilled outsourced employees from the IT sector. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM).

The paper's hypotheses were supported. It can conclude that, if an employee interprets the HR practices as part of a commitment‐focused strategy of the outsourcing company, it has clear attitudinal benefits. The study found that the relationship between HR attributions and the commitment to the client organization is mediated by the commitment to the outsourcing company.

These findings hint at the critical role of outsourcing companies in managing the careers of these highly marketable employees.

This paper is the first to apply the concept of HR attributions to contingent employment literature in general and to outsourced IT workers in particular.

Social movement research often focusses on phases of success and large protest events. By contrast, taking an interest in the question of how organizational change occurs within social movements, this study points out the importance of phases of low protest activity. The organizational structure of the Portuguese anti-austerity protests provides a thought-provoking case, as large protests organized by civil society actors other than the trade unions were a novelty in 2011. Furthermore, there are long periods of absence of large protests, and the organizational structure of the protests has undergone significant changes. Based on fieldwork in Portugal between September 2011 and March 2013, I differentiate between four phases in the organization of protests against austerity. I argue that it is mainly times of low degrees of activism – times that are rarely taken into account by social movement research – that lead to radical changes in the organizational structure of a social movement. The impact of the following factors on the direction of change is analyzed: (a) strategic choice; (b) values and normative commitments; (c) (potential) alliances and participants; (d) inspiration from other cases of social movement activism; and (e) learning processes, the history of social movements and the impact of memory.