Control and commitment HR practices, job satisfaction and turnover intentions: a comparison between local and multinational firms in China

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature and debate around control versus commitment human resource management (HRM) systems and their impacts on employees. However, the impacts of these constructs have not been widely examined in more emerging economies. Taking a specific sample of educated professionals working for multinational and local firms in China, this study investigated employee perceptions of control and commitment HR practices, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. A total of 311 respondents completed a structured survey questionnaire. Results revealed that those working for multinational firms reported more positive perceptions of their employers' control and commitment HR practices. In multinational firms, the use of commitment HR practices predicted lower intentions to leave. However, in domestic firms a lack of control HR practices predicted higher turnover intentions. Theoretically, the study adds to discussions about the nature and roles of these constructs, their impacts on HR outcomes and how institutional mechanisms might shape the degree of HRM homogeneity and hybridity across organizations in China. Practically, the study provides guidance to international and local firms on how to improve their HRM effectiveness to achieve a higher retention of their most talented professionals.

Doctor-patient relationships (DPR) in China

“…More recently, Ma et al (2016) provided further evidence on the presence of control and commitment HR practices followed by organizations in China.…”

“…Commitment HR Practices and their Impact on Job Satisfaction and Patient Care Outcome Strategic human resource scholars have argued that organizations can effectively influence the attitudes and behaviors of employees through different human resource (HR) practices (Collins and Smith, 2006;Huselid, 1995). In this regard, control and commitment HR practices represent two different HR approaches in the literature (Arthur, 1994;Boselie et al, 2003;Ma et al, 2016;Wood and de Menezes, 1998;Xiao and Tsui, 2007). While control HR practices enforce employee compliance with rules and procedures, commitment ones focus on developing committed employees through higher levels of employee involvement in decisionmaking and team-focused activities (e.g.…”

“…Leggat et al, 2010). In this study, we continue the notion of commitment HR practices of previous studies in China (Ma et al, 2016;Su and Wright, 2012), and specifically focus on those that include sets of human resource practices such as participation in decision-making, internal communication, team work, information sharing, which affect employee commitment and motivation (Xiao and Tsui, 2007).…”

Challenges for foreign companies in China: implications for research and practice

“…There are many opportunities that foreign companies can take advantage of, including the large and fast-growing domestic market, an improving institutional environment, various investor-friendly policies in regional and centrally controlled special economic and high-tech development zones (Wu and Burge 2018), an ever improving quality of human resources (Ma et al 2016), and better infrastructure. Recent national nationally recorded development data illustrate an optimistic future.…”

When the farm-gate becomes a revolving door: An institutional approach to high labour turnover

“…Traditionally, much research attention has been devoted to increasing our understanding of the antecedents of voluntary labour turnover (Ma, Silva, Callan, & Trigo, 2015;Van der Aa, Bloemer, & Henseler, 2012); and to delineating successful retention strategies based on the assumption that voluntary labour turnover is expensive and has to be reduced at all times (Abbasi & Hollman, 2000). However, in certain cases, it has been argued that maintaining labour turnover is beneficial for the firm because the costs of facing labour turnover are lower than the costs of actually reducing it (Baruch, 1998;Dalton et al, 1982;Standing, 1989;Wallace & Gaylor, 2012).…”