insist that commitment practices tend to enhance employee commitment to
the company, and that staff turnover is reduced accordingly (Arthur, 1994;
Gardner et al., 2001; Guthrie, 2001; Huselid, 1995; Kossek & Block, 2000;
Pfeffer, 1998). The current research adds to these findings by showing that
such effects, at least in part, occur via employees’ overall perceptions of HR
effectiveness.
Considering that employees’ overall perceptions represent high correlations among employees’ perceptions of diverse HR practices, it seems that the
result is consistent with assertions on information processing that individuals
tend to selectively perceive information that is consistent with the existing
schema (Lord, 1985). That is, employees’ perceptions of a certain practice
may also reflect their perceptions of other practices, or their existing ‘mental
picture’ regarding the practices in general. Because employees are exposed to
a variety of HR practices and systems at the workplace, consideration of the
overall aspect of employees may enhance understanding how HR practices
influence employees’ attitudes.
The result seems to have several practical implications for managers. The
strong correlations among employee perceptions of individual HR practices
indicate that employees may readily perceive a certain practice to be effective
if they have perceived other HR practices as effective, and their attitudes may
be strongly influenced by the consistency of their perceptions. The other side
of the coin is that a salient negative perception can undermine other effective
practices. For instance, implementing a suggestion system may contribute to
positive attitudes in employees if managed effectively (or it is probable that
employees perceive it positively regardless of the actual effectiveness), but if
employees find the system very ineffective for some reason, there is a risk that
they will come to perceive other practices in the same way, coming to believe,
for example, that appraisal or compensation methods are ineffective. Therefore, managers will have to consider the interrelatedness of employee perceptions of diverse HR practices, even when they are focusing on a single practice.
Managers, however, will need to interpret the results cautiously. It is
possible that the company can take advantage of the existing schema among
employees, for example, if the company knows that its employees perceive
the existing HR practices positively, it may not devote enough time and effort
to devise a new practice to be very objective and effective. According to the
results of the current research, even in such a case, the negative effect may not
be visualized in the short-term, but the approach may eventually undermine
the overall perception of the employees as they accumulate negative experiences of the practice and thus ruin their best practices and firm performance.
The result that employees’ overall perception is influenced by commitment HR practices seems to further strengthen the generalizability of the
commitment practices into settings other than the USA. However, it is
notable that the effect was not very strong. It indicates that implementation
of commitment HR practices should be a necessary, but may not be a
sufficient, condition to induce employees’ belief that the current HR practices are effective. Other variables, such as leadership attributes or organizational climate (e.g. trust and perceived organizational support) may exist,
and the company must pay attention to these factors in addition to implementing commitment practices.
The second possible explanation for the relatively weak effect concerns
methodology. The current research measured HR practices at the company
level. Considering the possibility that a company’s HR practices may not be
applied equally to the entire workforce, variances within a company might
impact employees’ perception, but this was not captured by the current
research. Therefore, examining HR implementation at the divisional or
business-unit level may provide more powerful explanations of the determinants of employees’ overall perception.
The final notable finding has to do with the mediation role of procedural justice. Organizational justice has been treated as a very important
construct in shaping employees’ attitudes at the workplace (Greenberg,1990), and the current research also highlights the importance of employees’
justice perceptions. Interestingly, recent studies in the area extend this issue
in terms of the longevity of the effect. The study by Ambrose and Cropanzano (2003) shows that the effect of procedural justice tends to be particularly strong in the short-term, i.e. prior to and soon after outcome decisions
are made. This means that the mediation degree of procedural justice may
also vary with the time when the data are collected, e.g. right before or after
the appraisal decision is made, the mediation effect can be the strongest. It
may, or may not, indicate that the effects of the HR bundle and overall
perception also vary; at the very least, however, it suggests that the degree
of mediation by procedural justice may vary. This seems to be an interesting
topic, and deserves further research.
Contributions made by the current research are threefold. First, it
developed the concept of an employee’s overall perception of the effectiveness of HR practices, and examined the effect on the employee’s attitude.
Existing studies have examined employees’ perceptions of individual practices (Chang, 1999; Gartner & Nollen, 1989), but the current research
extended the discussion, using a composite measure of an employee’s overall
perception, and discovered the effects on employee commitment. Considering the trend in strategic HRM to examine HR practices as a whole or as a
bundle (Huselid, 1995; MacDuffie, 1995), the current research has
contributed to applying the bundle issue to the individual perception level.
Second, the research examined the issue of the commitment HR bundle
in a non-US setting. Most existing studies used US companies and employees
as samples (Arthur, 1994; Becker & Huselid, 1998; Delaney & Huselid,
1996; Huselid, 1995; MacDuffie, 1995). The current research examined the
issue using Korean employees, whose cultural values have been recognized
as being significantly different from those of US employees (Hofstede, 1991).
Finally, the current research utilized a multi-level approach. By collecting
data at the company and employee levels, the research contributed to unlocking the process of HR practice effects on employees.