The influence of line managers and HR department on employees' affective commitment

By Carrie Clegg Gilbert, Sophie Anna De Winne, Luc Sels. 2011

228 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Based on social exchange theory, we investigate the impact of HRM investments made by two important HR actors, line managers and HR department, on employees' affective commitment. More specifically, we examine the independent and joint impact of line managers' enactment of HR practices, their relations-oriented leadership behaviour and the HR department's service quality. Accordingly, we consider the largely neglected HRM role of line managers. In addition, we focus on perceived HRM, which is seen as a determining factor in employees' attitudinal and behavioural reactions. Data for this study were collected from 1363 employees, working in three service organizations. The results indicate that line managers can enhance employees' affective commitment by both the effective enactment of HR practices and the effective relations-oriented leadership behaviour. High service quality by the HR department also has a positive effect on employees' affective commitment. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/016cdce1516657b1c3bda6ffa72bfa48bc0dddac

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In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

The link between perceived human resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated mediation model (2013, background): “Line managers play an important role in the enactment of HRM practices (Gilbert, De Winne and Sels 2011 ; Sanders and Frenkel 2011 ); it is only through collaboration between both parties that HRM practices can yield positive outcomes (Purcell and Hutchinson 2007 ).”
Team Manager’s Implementation, High Performance Work Systems Intensity, and Performance: A Multilevel Investigation (2018, unknown): “Several recent studies have acknowledged that the role of work group managers determines the effectiveness of HRM (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2011; Ryu & Kim, 2013; Sterling & Boxall, 2013).”
Developmental HRM, employee well-being and performance: the moderating role of developing leadership (2019, background): “Although line managers have been put forward as key stakeholders in realizing the effectiveness of HR practices (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2011; Bos-Nehles et al., 2013;)”
Antecedents and Employee Outcomes of Line Managers' Perceptions of Enabling HR Practices (2014, background): “In addition, a few quantitative studies have revealed a positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of supportive or relational LMs and employees’ perceptions of HR practices (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2012; Gilbert et al., 2011; Kuvaas and Dysvik, 2010; Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007).”