A multi-actor perspective on the effectiveness of human resource management implementation: an empirical analysis based on the ability-motivation-opportunity framework

Abstract

This study is based on the assumption that human resource (HR) practices are implemented through interactions between a variety of actors involved in the process. Novel insights emerge from the analysis of how interactions between HR managers, line managers (LMs) and employees result in effective implementation of HR practices. Drawing on the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework, the aim of the study is twofold. First, we investigate the extent to which HR department initiatives—classified into HR ability-enhancing, HR motivation-enhancing and HR opportunity-enhancing—increase LMs’ perceived ability, motivation and opportunity to perform in human resource management (HRM). Second, we analyse the role of LMs’ AMO on the effective implementation of HR practices assessed in terms of employees’ satisfaction with HR practices. We collected data from the HR manager, the line manager and between two and five employees (in total 302 employees) in each of the 100 Spanish companies in our sample. Our results reveal that HR motivation-enhancing initiatives increase LMs’ motivation; and HR opportunity-enhancing initiatives improve LMs’ perceived ability, motivation and opportunity, and indirectly the effectiveness of HRM implementation. We also found that LMs’ opportunity is a crucial factor in improving the effectiveness of HR practice implementation. Implications for research and practices are discussed.

Keywords:

• line managers
• AMO framework
• HRM implementation
• effectiveness

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Notes

1 Although the EFA showed that all items loaded on the same factor, one HR opportunity item (item 1, see appendix) was also deleted since it displayed cross-factor loading with HR abilities items.

2 For the sake of brevity, we do not report the results of the model with interaction terms. They are, however, available from the first author upon request.

3 We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this analysis.

4 To measure the HR–LM agreement, we first computed a ‘disagreement’ score using the Euclidean distance between the perceptions of the two managers. We used the following equation: $\sqrt{{{\sum }_1^k{(S}_i-S_j)}^2}$, where S_i and S_j are, respectively, the HR and sales managers’ score on the set of k (=10) items in Den Hartog et al.’s (2013) measurement scale. This score was then converted to an HR–LM agreement measure by subtracting the respective score for each firm from the maximum ‘disagreement’ score of the sample.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain, grant number PGC2018-099040-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE).