Beyond single explanations in management studies - The interactive impact of the HRM process,
leadership and job demands on psychological contract fulfillment, work engagement, well-being and
turnover intentions among Russian and Finnish employees.
Mats Ehrnrooth & Alexei Koveshnikov
Hanken School of Economics
Helsinki, Finland
Background
This project will not only contribute to cutting edge theorizing in the field of human resource management
(HRM), but will also integrate theories from HRM, leadership and organizational behavior (OB) to pursue a
state-of the-art model of organizations’ efforts to increase their performance by managing their employees.
The integrative perspective allows us to address the problem of researchers’ tendencies to rely on ‘single
explanations’, i.e. a focus on their area of expertise while disregarding closely connected fields of research
(Rosenzweig, 2007). This tendency in past research contributes to one of the major delusions academics and
practitioners have about, for example, the importance of human resource management (HRM), leadership or
organizational behavior (OB) (Rosenzweig, 2007), and is thus important to address. Finally, by collecting
data from both Finland and Russia, we are both able to validate our general model and contribute to the
understanding of management in the significantly under-researched Russian context.
State-of-the-art HRM theory and its connections to leadership and job demands
Much management and organization research has pursued the idea that human resources and their
management can produce sustained competitive advantage for organizations (Wright, Dunford and Snell,
2001). There is much evidence for this (Combs, Liu, Hall and Kretchen, 2006), but many questions remain
(Guest, 2011). One of the most important concerns the mechanisms through which HRM contributes to
performance and creates value for organizations (see e.g. Boxall & Macky, 2009; Guest, 2011; Paauwe,
2009). Another is the extent to which the extant evidence overstates HRM’s influence due to overlaps with,
for example, non-examined leadership related phenomena (Rosenzweig, 2007).
A key recent development in HRM research concerns new theorizations of the mechanisms of HRM’s
effects. First, Bowen and Ostroff’s (2004) process theory postulates a signalling or communication effect of
the HRM process on employees’ understanding of performance expectations (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004).
‘HRM process’ refers to the perceived distinctiveness, consistency of HRM practice implementation, and the
consensus about the causal significance of the practices. Despite its novelty and potential, this theorization
has received limited attention in empirical research (Guest, 2011). Second, Kärreman and Alvesson’s (2007)
HRM process theory suggests that HRM process intensity (part of distinctiveness) alone has a controlling
effect by influencing employees’ identification with the organization and thus their internalised motivation to
comply with performance expectations (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2007). The validity of this theory remains
to be tested. Finally, one of the researchers involved in the present project has in a series of papers
(Ehrnrooth and Björkman, conditionally accepted for publication in Journal of Management Studies;
Ehrnrooth and Höglund, 2011; Höglund and Ehrnrooth, 2011), integrated both of the above new theories and
the more traditional HRM ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) theory of HRM’s influence (for the latter,
see for example Lepak et al., 2006; Boselie et al., 2005). The present project will extend research on this
integrative HR process perspective, but also shed light on the relative role of each of the mechanisms
postulated in the respective theories by properly identifying these mechanisms, their antecedents and
consequences.
A second important area of development in HRM research, intimately related to the mechanisms of
HRM’s influence, is the critique of the hitherto dominant, mutual gains or win-win perspective on the
outcomes of HRM. This perspective assumes that HRM outcomes are positive for both employers and
employees (Boxall and Macky, 2009). In contrast to this, it has been argued that HRM is likely to have not
only positive consequences for employees, but also negative ones such as increased workload (Ehrnrooth and
Björkman, ibid.; Geary and Trief, 2011) and emotional exhaustion (Kroon, van de Voorde and van
Veldhoven, 2009). The present project contributes to this important and growing body of work by analysing
the influence of the HRM process on negative outcomes, in this case increased job demands (JDs) and
emotional exhaustion, as well as positive outcomes, in this case psychological contract (PC) fulfilment, work
engagement, well-being and (reduced) turnover intentions.
An additional contribution of our project is to address the weakness of single explanations in
management research (Rosenzweig, 2007). To address this we will analyse the separate and various
moderating and mediating effects of the HRM process, leadership and job demands on the postulated
outcomes of the HRM process. Bowen and Ostroff (2004) suggested that leadership is likely to moderate the
impact of the HRM process, but this suggestion has not been pursued in subsequent research. This is a
serious literature gap, not least given the increasing devolvement of HRM responsibility to line managers.
The transformational leadership style has been found to be the most effective both in the West (Yukl, 1999)
and in Russia (Elenkov, 2002). Finally, research on organizational behaviour (OB) provides reasons to
believe that increased job demands and emotional exhaustion negatively influence employees’ psychological
contract fulfilment as well as their work engagement, well-being and (thus) turnover intentions (Bakker &
Demerouti 2007; Bakker 2011; Demerouti & Bakker 2011). These authors also argued that job resources will
reduce the negative effects of job demands. Since both the HRM process and leadership are key means not
only (as usually argued) of providing job resources but also of increasing JDs, it is important to understand
the role of JDs in the effects of both HRM and leadership. The present research project will contribute also
to our understanding of this.
A final important contribution of our project will be to test the proposed relationships in both a
Western developed economy (Finland) and an emergent market (Russia). Due to its more dynamic
institutional and socio-economic environment, the employee-organization relationship in today’s Russia is
likely to exhibit considerable variance, with tendencies of crossvergence of Western and Russian leadership
styles and employee attitudes and behaviors (Ralston et al., 2008; Koveshnikov, 2011; McCarthy et al., 2008,
2010; Efendiev, Balabanova, Ehrnrooth and Koveshnikov, 2011b, in review) causing significant variation in
how organizations have been able to build and maintain new psychological contracts with their employees.
Due to the above, the comparative setting of Finland and modern Russia offers a fruitful setting to pursue the
generalizability/limitations of the above suggested relationships. In addition, the management of Russian
organizations is in general a scarcely researched context (Michailova et al., 2011; Puffer et al., 2011).
Extending management research in this context constitutes, in itself, an important contribution of the present
research project.
While this project and its conceptual framework will naturally still be developed, the key elements of the
model are exhibited in Figure 1.
Perceived transformational leadership by superior
Figure 1
Consistency
Perceived
consensus
HRM process
Distinctiveness
/ Intensity
- selection, rewards, development, performance appraisal
+
+
Job resources
+
Understanding
/ Role ambiguity
Ability,
Motivation and
Opportunity
(AMO)
+
+
Psycholgical
Contract
fulfillment
+
Well-being/Work
engagement and
Turnover
intentions
Identification
with (career in)
organization
-
-
-
+
+
Perceived job
Demands
+
Emotional
exhaustion
Objectives of the present project
1.
2.
To pursue the validity of a more inclusive understanding of the complex and interactive effects of HRM,
leadership and job demands on the resulting employment relationship, primarily in terms of psychological
contract fulfilment but also their effects on employee work engagement, wellbeing and turnover intentions.
To test the proposed model in two radically different contexts, that of Russia and Finland. This will not only
allow validation of the model concerning its generalizability/limitations (most of the elements in the model
have been developed in a Western context), but also enable us to add to the scarce research and limited
understanding of the management of Russian organizations.