Influence of human resource system strength on collective affective commitment: a contingent approach

Abstract

This research focuses on the HR strategy implementation process, and in particular on the concept of HR system strength. In this paper we analyze the impact of HR system strength on collective affective commitment and examine this relationship from a contingent perspective, taking into account the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) and organizational size. The statistical analysis of data obtained from a sample of 142 Spanish companies and 504 key employees indicates that, when the effect of HR practices on collective affective commitment is controlled for, the strength of the HR system also has a positive and significant effect on this affective commitment. Moreover, we conclude that this relationship is not the same for all companies, but depends on the level of LMX in the organization. That is, depending on the overall relationship between leaders and subordinates in the organization, the effect of HR system strength on workforce affective commitment will vary. In particular, when the relationships between leaders and followers are good, the effect of HR system strength on affective commitment is lower.

Keywords:

• HR system strength
• collective affective commitment
• contingent approach
• leader-member exchange
• organizational size

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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 the information they contain could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Notes

1 According to Connelly et al. (2011, p. 55), ‘when a signal is interpreted by others in a particular way, an individual who is unsure about how to interpret the signal may look to imitation as a means of decision making’.

2 An alternative second‐order factor model with the three HRSS dimensions modeled as first-order factors was also estimated. In this model, despite presenting a good fit to the data (χ² = 69.75; df = 54; p > 0.05), the residual variances associated with the distinctiveness and consistency dimensions were not statistically significant. The existence of non-significant residual variances indicates that the HRSS factor captures all shared variance (i.e. the commonality) among the dimensions and that there is no need to include additional first-order factors. This result confirms the unidimensionality of the HRSS factor in our empirical dataset.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the ‘Agencia Estatal de Investigación’ and FEDER (Ref. PID2022-141683NB-I00; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER,UE).