Although strategic human resource (HR) management research has established a significant relationship between high-performance HR practices and firm-level financial and market outcomes, few studies have considered the important role of employees’ perceptions of HR practice use or examined the more proximal outcomes of high-performance HR practices that may play mediating roles in the HR practice–performance relationship. To address recent calls in the literature for an investigation of this nature, this study examined the relationships between employees’ perceptions of high-performance HR practice use in their job groups and employee absenteeism, intent to remain with the organization, and organizational citizenship behavior, dedicating a focus to the possible mediating role of affective organizational commitment in these relationships. Data in this study were collected from surveys of employees at a large multiunit food service organization. The model was tested with CWC(M) mediation analysis (i.e., centered within context with reintroduction of the subtracted means at Level 2), which accounted for the multilevel structure of the data. Results indicate that employees’ perceptions of high-performance HR practice use at the job group level positively related to all dependent variables and that affective organizational commitment partially mediated the relationship between HR practice perceptions and organizational citizenship behavior and fully mediated the relationship between HR practice perceptions and intent to remain with the organization. The discussion reviews the implications of these results and suggests future directions for research in this vein.

Do star employees enhance or constrain the innovative performance of an organization? Using data from 456 biotechnology firms between 1973 and 2003, we highlight the duality of the effects that stars have on firm performance. We show that while stars positively affect firms' productivity, their presence constrains the emergence of other innovative leaders in an organization. We find that firm productivity and innovative leadership among non-stars in a firm are greatest when a star has broad expertise and collaborates frequently. We offer cross-disciplinary insights into the role of human capital as a source of competitive advantage, suggesting that the value of human capital in a firm is contingent on the mutual dependence inherent in high-status employees' relationships with other individuals in a firm.

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.

This paper examines newer conceptualizations of HRM practices in the HR-performance relationship as well as newer conceptualizations of commitment. Juxtaposing these categories of HR practices and types of commitment provides a clearer theoretical rational for at least some ways that HR practices can influence organizational performance, be that positive or negative. Implications for research are then discussed.