Building upon and extending Parker, Bindl, and Strauss's (2010) theory of proactive motivation, we develop an integrated, multilevel model to examine how contextual factors shape employees' proactive motivational states and, through these proactive motivational states, influence their personal initiative behavior. Using data from a sample of hotels collected from 3 sources and over 2 time periods, we show that establishment-level initiative-enhancing human resource management (HRM) systems were positively related to departmental initiative climate, which was positively related to employee personal initiative through employee role-breadth self-efficacy. Further, department-level empowering leadership was positively related to initiative climate only when initiative-enhancing HRM systems were low. These findings offer interesting implications for research on personal initiative and for the management of employee proactivity in organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Recent research provides evidence that, contrary to implicit assumptions in much of the strategic human resource management (SHRM) literature, human resource (HR) systems and practices are in fact enacted with substantial variation across units even within organizations, with such variation largely a function of the line managers involved in implementing HR practices in the units under their supervision. While instrumental in demonstrating the critical role that line managers play in facilitating the causal chain linking organizations' HR practices with intended employee and organizational outcomes, we contend that the focus of this research on HR practice implementation as a singular and unidimensional characterization of line managers' involvement in human resource management (HRM) represents an oversimplification on several counts. Broadly, we propose that this focus fails to account for the varied nature of line managers' downward influences in the context of HRM. Thus, we integrate insights from research on HR practice implementation, workforce differentiation, and autonomous strategic behavior to develop a more complete understanding of line managers' downward involvement in HRM. Based on our synthesis of relevant insights from these literatures, we propose a research agenda focusing on questions spanning four broad areas with the aim of fostering and guiding future SHRM scholarship to further our understanding of the antecedents, processes, and consequences associated with line managers' influences on HR system content and process in organizations.

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This study integrates strategic human resource management (SHRM) and transformational leadership (TFL) literatures to address gaps in each of the two literatures. Building on the concept of strategically targeted HRM systems and the contingency perspective in SHRM, we propose that an organization's high‐performance work system (HPWS) affects team managers' TFL, and that the emergence of TFL and the effectiveness of TFL on team performance are contingent on organizational adaptation and efficiency orientations. Analyses of multilevel data from 179 teams in 44 organizations revealed a positive relationship between HPWS and TFL, which was positively and negatively moderated by adaptation and efficiency orientations, respectively. Further, TFL was positively related to team performance and negatively moderated by efficiency orientation. Finally, the results supported a multilevel, moderated mediation effect with the indirect effect of HPWS on team performance via TFL varying significantly as a function of adaptation and efficiency orientations. Implications for the SHRM and leadership literatures and practice are discussed.