Linking Management And Employee Perceptions Of High-Performance Work Systems Toward Employee Performance:a Multilevel Model Examining Mediating Mechanism

Research in strategic human resource management (SHRM) has identified the impact of human resource (HR) systems on firm performance acknowledging the mediating role of employee outcomes and emphasized the important role of employee perceptions of HR systems in predicting employee outcomes. To ensure the linkage of HR systems-employee outcomes-firm performance, the congruence of HR systems’ perception between employees and management has been given a keen interest in recent research. Therefore, the congruence of perceptions of human resource (HR) systems between employee and management is an overarching goal of all organizations to increase employee outcome and ultimate firm performance. To explore this research need, the present study tries to find out how department managers’ knowledge, skill and abilities (KSAs) and servant leadership behavior align the employee perceived HR systems with department manager perceived HR systems. The present study further posits that employees’ perceived goal congruence, organization-based self-esteem, and psychological contract fulfillment mediate the relationship between employee perceived high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employee performance such as, in-role, citizenship, and creativity behavior. I proposed and tested a multilevel model with data from343employees and56managers employed in six firms in Bangladesh. I used structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling to analyze the data. The results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that managers’ KSAs moderated the influence of manager perceived HPWS and employee perceived HPWS such that the relationships were stronger when managers’ KSAs was high than it was low. This finding explains that managers with more knowledge, skills, and abilities related to HR issues tended to have more similar perceptions of HPWS with employees. Similarly, the results of analyses also found the moderating role of managers’ servant leadership behavior in the relationship between manager perceived HPWS and employee perceived HPWS such that the relationships were stronger when servant leadership was high than it was low. The study also found the positive mediating role of perceived goal congruence in the relationship between employee perceived HPWS and in-role and citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, employees’perception of organization-based self-esteem mediated the positive impact of employee perceived HPWS on citizenship and creativity behaviors. The study also reported the positive mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment in the relationship between employee perceived HPWS and in-role and citizenship behaviors. The findings of this study are likely to contribute to the literature by explaining how employee perceptions of HPWS is aligned with that of management and the intervening mechanisms through which employee perceived HPWS impact employees’behavioral outcomes. This study also provides managerial implications emphasizing line managers’role in shaping employees’perception of HR systems that are essential to organizational performance. More specifically, managers can influence their subordinates through enriching HR related abilities and behaving as servant leaders. To do so, organization should provide training to the line managers regarding implementation of HR systems and enhancement of leadership capabilities. Furthermore, managers are suggested to sincerely implement HR systems as because employees’perception of goal congruence, psychological contract fulfillment and their self-esteem mediated the impact of their perceived HR systems on employees’behavioral outcomes.