High commitment human resource practices and employee behavior : a multi-level analysis

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between high commitment human resource practices (HCHRPs), conceptualized at the workplace level and employees’ attitudes, including affective commitment (AC) and turnover intention (TI). The study also tests the moderating role of cooperative labor–management relations (CLMR) between HCHRPs and organizational trust (OT). Design/methodology/approach: Based on social exchange theory and trust commitment theory, the authors build a research model that explains employee behavior and empirically prove the model by using samples of 407 employees from South Korea. This study uses hierarchical linear regression and cross-level hypotheses based on hierarchical linear modeling. Findings: The results demonstrate the positive impact of HCHRPs on an AC and TI, through OT. However, no moderating effect of CLMR between human resource management (HRM) practices and OT is observed. Originality/value: Few theory-based studies test the direct linkage between HRM practices and outcomes. This study is designed with a multi-level research method to provide a conceptually comprehensive and deeper understanding of how HRM practices work in an organization by testing the relationship between organizational practices and employees’ outcomes.