A reflection paper for a seminar on Liu, Gong, Zhou, and Huang (2016)

Written by Anonymous on Jun 3, 2017

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A year ago in the early June of 2016, I attended as an audience an academic seminar
organized by a reputable university in Hong Kong. Since I found the seminar especially
impressive and invaluable, I would very much like to write on some of my thoughts about it.
Also, the write-up would serve to fulfill part of the workshop requirement of my doctoral
study at the university.
The seminar was conducted by Dr. Dong Liu and it was very well attended. Dr. Liu
got his PhD from University of Washington Seattle and is an Associate Professor of
Organizational Behavior with Tenure at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research
focuses on creativity, major event theory, turnover, teams, international entrepreneurship
and cross-cultural management. Dr. Liu has published extensively and his papers have
appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal
of Management, and other reputable journals.
In the seminar, Dr. Liu presented his recent research study (Liu, Gong, Zhou, &
Huang, 2016) titled, “Human resource systems, employee creativity, and firm innovation:
The moderating role of firm ownership,” the findings of which had already been accepted
by the Academy of Management Journal for publishing. Incidentally, Dr. Liu’s research and
my own research have some commonalities. In spite of the various other things that
distinguish Dr. Liu’s research from that of mine, we both are looking at human resource
systems and their effects on employee creativity. And, I feel so blessed because I picked up
from Dr. Liu’s generous sharing very useful implications for two aspects of the research
study which I am currently undertaking.
Dr. Liu investigated the interactions between two human resource (HR) subsystems.
Following the work of Katz and Kahn (1978) and that of Gong, Law, Chang, and Xin
(2009), Dr. Liu bisected a conventional HR system into two distinct parts, namely,
performance-oriented and maintenance-oriented HR subsystems. The former HR
subsystem consisted of “a set of HR practices that primarily develop HR and provide
motivation and opportunities for their productive use” and the latter one consisted of “a
set of HR practices that primarily ensures employee well-being and equality and is decided
in terms of values that are unrelated to input–output ratios” (Gong et al., 2009, p. 264).
Specifically, Dr. Liu examined in his research whether, how, and when the aforesaid
two HR subsystems jointly influence employee creativity. Among other findings, he
reported that, when there are strong maintenance-oriented HR subsystems,
performance-oriented HR subsystems are positively related to employee domain-relevant
skills, which in turn lead to employee creativity. In great contrast, however, when there are
weak maintenance-oriented HR subsystems, the relationship between performance-oriented
HR subsystems and employee domain-relevant skills turns negative. As such, Dr. Liu
succeeded identifying the moderating role of maintenance-oriented HR subsystem.
So what? Dr. Liu added one more moderator into the extant literature. For me, his
findings mean a lot more than just another moderator. Dr. Liu actually presented a
compelling piece of empirical evidence for the synergistic effect that a system of HR
practices promises to deliver. Synergistic effect is said to occur when the combined effect is
greater than the sum of the individual effects.
In my present doctoral research, I am examining the effect of the so-called high
commitment work system as proposed by Baron and Kreps (1999), which is a collection of
HR practices (very similar to those enlisted by Dr. Liu’s research), aiming to make best use
of human resource available to an organization by increasing involvement, trust, and
commitment (Blyton & Turnbull, 1992), thereby contributing to improved employee
attitudes and behaviors, lower absenteeism and turnover, and higher productivity, quality
and customer service (Arthur, 1994; Huselid, 1995; Wood & De Menezes, 1998). While
voluminous research findings (e.g., Arthur, 1994; Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, & Kalleberg,
2000; Huselid, 1995; Ichniowski, Shaw, & Prennushi, 1997; MacDuffie, 1995; Youndt, Snell,
Dean, & Lepak, 1996) exist in the extant literature showing that higher levels of adoption
of high commitment work system lead to better organizational performance, no study (until
Dr. Liu’s work) has yet testified the most basic assumption that underlines the systemic
concept of HR practices, i.e., the synergistic interactions among the different components
of a system.
Indeed, the creation of synergistic effect is considered a critical idea of adopting a
system of HR practices rather than some HR practices in a piecemeal manner. And this is
being well illustrated by Dr. Liu’ findings which showed that organizations embracing the
entire system of HR practices, i.e., both the performance-oriented and
maintenance-oriented subsystems succeeded to create significant synergistic effect and
thereby maximized their employees’ domain-relevant skills (and creativity), whereas those
increasing their performance-oriented HR subsystems to high level while leaving the
maintenance-oriented HR systems at low level not only found their HR management
efforts futile but also saw their employees’ domain-relevant skills somewhat deteriorated.
So, I believe Dr. Liu’s work has filled an important gap in the relevant literature of HR
systems. Moreover, I must admit that Dr. Liu’s work has inspired me to look at my present
research study from another perspective. I am actually contemplating about the feasibility to
further analyze my already-collected data and see if I could replicate Dr. Liu’s findings on
the synergistic effect of a system of HR practices. For my research sample, would the
combination of performance-oriented and maintenance-oriented HR subsystems bring
about some sort of synergistic interaction? I guess the results of such a post hoc analysis
are going to be very interesting if I attempt to proceed with this replication.
I have just described above one aspect how I may learn from Dr. Liu’s good work.
There is indeed another aspect which I am going to elaborate as follow. In addition to
introducing the findings of his study, Dr. Liu shared with his audience the criticisms made
by reviewers at the Academy of Management Journal when submitting his paper to the
Journal, and how he had responded and finally overcome all the challenges and got his
paper accepted for publishing in the top-rated Journal.
One criticism the reviewers made was about the employees’ perceptions or experiences which
Dr. Liu measured regarding the levels of HR practices. The reviewers queried why it would
be meaningful to study employee-experienced HR systems. I felt surprised (although not
very surprised) when I learnt that reviewers at Academy of Management Journal had made
such a criticism to Dr. Liu’s study. I did not feel very surprised because that was already the
second time I heard about such a criticism. Actually, one research supervisor of mine
received a very similar criticism when he tried to publish with another top-rated journal (not
AMJ though) his work studying some kind of HR system as perceived by employees.
Specifically, the reviewers at that top-rated journal challenged that, “…the sample from a
single company raises questions about what individual differences in perceptions of
identical HIHRP (high impact HR practices) really are…”
So, reviewers at two different journals have essentially raised the same criticism: the
meaningfulness of measuring individual differences in perceptions or experiences of the
same HR practices. The assumption behind this criticism is that employees will have similar
perceptions or experiences of the same HR practices (so why measure something that has
little variability). And, this assumption is what I cannot help but feel surprised at. Although
no one can (or should) draw any conclusion basing merely on the occurrence of two similar
incidents of criticism, it seems like the notion held by Dr. Liu and my research supervisor
(and me too) that individual employees in an organization tend to have different
perceptions or experiences of the same HR practices has been either not well accepted or,
if accepted, not well widespread among researchers.
In responding to the criticism about the meaningfulness of measuring employees’
perceptions of HR systems or practices, Dr. Liu witfully resorted to the research work
conducted by Liu, Lee, Hui, Kwan, & Wu (2013). Published with Journal of Applied
Psychology, Liu et al. (2013) studied idiosyncratic deals and employee outcomes.
Idiosyncratic deals by definition refer to individualized work arrangements and Rousseau
(2005) noted an increasing trend of employers having idiosyncratic deals with employees.
Among other relevant concepts, Liu et al. (2013) investigated the importance of self
for understanding the effects of organizational practices on employee outcomes. The
researchers contended that “the meaning and importance of the self differ across
individuals, and an employee’s orientation toward the self should have implications for the
relationships between i-deals (idiosyncratic deals) and outcomes” (p. 834). Knowing that
different orientations toward the self have been captured in terms of personal values (such
as individualism), Liu et al. (2013) surveyed a sample of employees from two Chinese
companies and found support to their hypothesized moderating role of individualism in the
relationships between idiosyncratic deals and employee outcomes.
So, why did Dr. Liu pick up Liu et al.’s (2013) work as a defense to the aforesaid review
criticism? The relevance of Liu et al.’s (2013) work lies in its highlight on the variability in
employees’ perceptions or experiences of HR practices. The researchers found that
employees’ perceptions of idiosyncratic deals vary and one source of such variability is
those employees’ individualism which operates as a moderator on the effect of idiosyncratic
deals to such employee outcomes as affective commitment and proactive behavior.
In an article titled, “Variability within organizations: Implications for strategic human
resource management,” Nishii and Wright (2008), both at Cornell University, forcefully
appealed that it is indeed meaningful to explicitly recognize and capture the many ways in
which individuals and groups may perceive, experience, and respond differentially to HR
systems within organizations when examining the HR practices to performance
relationship.
In accordance to the theories of social cognition, people attach different meanings to
social stimuli based on differences in the cognitive frameworks that they use to make sense
of social information (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). It thus makes little sense to assume that
employees will respond similarly in their attitudes and behaviors to HR practices. As
elaborated by Guzzo and Noonan (1994), the very same set of HR practices can be
perceived positively by some employees but not others, depending on the level of perceived
fit between those practices and individual values, personality, goals, and schematic
expectations.
Here, I would like to reiterate the meaningfulness of measuring HR practices as
perceived by employees by quoting what Nishii and Wright (2008) argued for in their article:
We contend that the effect of actual HR practices does not reside in those
practices, but rather in the perceptions that employees have of those practices.
We expect that employee perceptions of HR practices vary as a function of
differences in schemas and associated values, personality, and other individual
difference variables… It is these employee perceptions that are in turn
associated with attitudinal and behavioral reactions on the part of employees,
which, in the aggregate, are associated with organizational performance. (p. 227)
Hopefully, more researchers would respond to Nishii and Wright’s appeal of examining the
variability in employees’ perceptions or experiences of HR practices. Without explicit
consideration, such an issue of variability might erroneously be considered noise, or lead to
incomplete or inaccurate conclusions regarding the HR practices to performance
relationship. Perhaps, upon the publication of Dr. Liu’s work in the Academy of
Management Journal, I think more research interests on this variability issue would be
aroused.
As a matter of fact, like Dr. Liu’s work, I am measuring in my present doctoral
research HR systems as perceived by employees, and the meaningfulness of which I guess
will likely be challenged by external examiners during my upcoming oral examination or by
reviewers when I attempt to publish my own research findings in the near future. However,
I think I am now well prepared to confront such a criticism and defend my position
accordingly.
Having learnt so much from Dr. Liu’s seminar, I think it’s time to express my heartfelt
gratitude at the ending of this reflective paper. I would like to convey my thanks to Dr. Liu
for having delivered such an intriguing talk as well as to the university that I attended for
having organized such a fruitful learning opportunity.

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