Mingqiong Mike Zhang

Research on how to leverage high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and other strategic human resource management (HRM) systems to improve performance outcomes has long been a cornerstone of the HRM discipline. This study offers a comprehensive mapping of the field through bibliometric analysis and a thematic synthesis of 3503 peer‐reviewed articles published across 156 leading journals from 1995 to 2025. By revisiting the HRM‐performance relationship and tracing the evolving trajectories of scholarly inquiry, the review identifies four major thematic domains: (1) configurational HRM architectures, (2) multilevel HRM‐performance impacts, (3) “black box” mechanisms that mediate and moderate the HRM‐performance link, and (4) emerging topics in HRM systems in responding to crises and socio‐technological changes. The review finds evidence for complex transmitting patterns through which HRM systems improve performance, characterized by a horizontally interwoven and vertically multi‐level nature. The study addresses longstanding conceptual fragmentation by clarifying the structure and theorization of HRM systems and contributes a synthesized framework to guide future research. It also highlights promising but underexplored avenues, such as the role of algorithmic HRM, methodological pluralism, and configurational logics, in advancing the understanding of HRM‐performance dynamics. Practical implications are elaborated, translating theoretical findings into actionable guidance for practitioners.

The rapid digitalization process has led to the widespread adoption of online learning for employee development. While online learning affords increased flexibility, the existing literature presents mixed findings regarding its overall effectiveness. In digital workplaces, a sharp focus on technology can increase work complexity and stress, highlighting the need to examine well‐being in the context of online learning, especially given its critical role in enhancing learning effectiveness. Notably, it remains unclear how employees’ ongoing efforts in online learning aimed at promoting personal development influence their well‐being, concerning the potential stress arising from adjusting to digital technologies. To address this gap, our study draws on the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) model to explore how employees’ continued online learning behaviours influence their workplace well‐being through the experience of techno‐eustress—defined as the positive psychological appraisal of technology adoption. We tested our hypotheses using time‐lagged and multisource data collected from Chinese firms. Through a multilevel research design, our results reveal that techno‐eustress mediates the relationship between continued online learning behaviours and workplace well‐being. Also, organizational learning culture serves as a significant organizational‐level moderator in the relationship between continued online learning behaviours and techno‐eustress.

The rise of algorithmic management (AM) is helping to transform work and employment relationships, creating new challenges and opportunities alike. AM leverages machine‐learning algorithms to help automate managerial functions. This raises key questions about its impact on work, organisations, and the broader society. This paper synthesises existing research on AM and categorizes scholarly insights into five theoretical perspectives: AM as a surveillance and control system, as a neutral tool, as an agentic boss, as a socio‐technical process, and AM as a contradictory unity. While AM enhances coordination and efficiency, it also raises concerns such as pervasive surveillance, bias, dehumanization and worker alienation. We highlight the tensions between control and autonomy, transparency and opacity, and efficiency and fairness, illustrating the paradoxical nature of AM. This paper proposes a future research agenda, calling for ethical governance and responsible design of algorithmic systems to reap the benefits of AM while managing potential risks and mitigating harms.

In the evolving landscape of human resource management (HRM), common good HRM (CG‐HRM) practices are increasingly recognized for their potential to align organizational goals with societal sustainability. Despite their importance, how CG‐HRM influences employee outcomes remain underexplored. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this research explores the impact of CG‐HRM practices, conceptualized as critical organizational‐level resources, on employees' perception of meaningfulness of work. [Correction added on 20 December 2024, after first online publication: The definition of COR has been corrected in the preceding sentence.] This perception significantly affects employee thriving, which in turn fosters innovative behavior. Employing a multi‐wave, multisource survey design, we collected data from 45 firms in China, involving 82 executives and 206 employees, to test our conceptual model. The findings from a multilevel path model reveal that organizational CG‐HRM practices contribute to employees' perceived meaningfulness of work, which promotes employee thriving and subsequently innovative behavior at the organizational level, while meaningfulness also contributes to thriving and, thus, innovative behavior at the employee level. Our research enriches the COR theory and contributes to the HRM, thriving, and innovation literature, offering insights for future research and practical implications for organizations striving to align their goals with societal and environmental sustainability while nurturing a thriving workforce.

In the contemporary digital age, continued online learning behaviors have become indispensable for fostering employee development. However, the learning and development literature predominantly focuses on traditional instructor‐led approaches. It remains unclear how organizations can shape employees' learning behaviors, particularly in the context of online learning. The current study clarifies this underexplored research area by investigating how organizational investment in employee developmental climate (IEDC) can promote employees' continued online learning behaviors. Drawing on social influence theory and employing a multilevel research design, we find empirical support for our research model, which specifies that IEDC positively affects employees' continued online learning behaviors through the effect of normative pressure. The findings also reveal the moderating role of online learning facilitating conditions. Specifically, in firms characterized by higher levels of online learning facilitating conditions, the positive relationship between IEDC and normative pressure becomes more pronounced when compared to organizations with lower levels of such facilitating conditions.

Purpose: In a complex, ever-changing, and turbulent business world, encouraging employees to express their improvement-oriented novel ideas through voice behavior is crucial for organizations to survive and thrive. Understanding how to foster employee promotive voice at work is a significant issue for both researchers and managers. This study explores how to foster employee promotive voice through specific HRM practices and positive employee attitudes. It also examines the effect of employee promotive voice on perceived organizational performance.Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a time-lagged multisource survey design. Data were collected from 215 executives, 790 supervisors, and 1,004 employees in 113 firms, and analyzed utilizing a multilevel moderated serial mediation model.Findings: The findings of this study revealed that promotive voice was significantly related to perceived organizational performance. Innovation-enhancing HRM was positively associated with employee promotive voice. The HRM-voice relationship was partially mediated by employee job satisfaction. Power distance orientation was found to significantly moderate the relationship between innovation-enhancing HRM and employee job satisfaction at the firm level. Our findings showed that innovation-enhancing HRM policies may fail to foster promotive voice if they do not enhance employee job satisfaction.Originality/value: This study challenges some taken-for-granted assumptions in the literature such as any high performance HRM bundles (e.g. HPWS) can foster employee promotive voice, and the effects of HRM are direct and even unconditional on organizational outcomes. It emphasizes the need to avoid potential unintended effects of HRM on employee voice and the importance of contextualizing voice research.

In the face of growing global tendencies of anti-globalization and de-globalization, emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) are suffering from a trust deficit and multiple liabilities of foreignness in leading economies. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the coping strategies of EMNEs towards the challenging institutional environment in host countries. It adopts a qualitative approach, conducting longitudinal multiple cases studies among MNE subsidiaries and employing interviews as the main method of data collection. The findings reveal that EMNEs are not passive recipients of the adverse institutional environment and adopt institutional adaptation as the only response strategy. Given that a single strategy cannot be effective, they have developed both proactive and protective strategies to handle the multiple liabilities of foreignness and trust deficit. This study can help EMNEs gain a better understanding of the dominance effect and develop more effective measures to manage challenging institutional environments in host countries. Given that interactions between institutional environments and firm-level strategies of MNEs remain under-researched, this study advances understanding of strategies and behaviours of MNEs in host countries.

Over the past several decades, Chinese universities have introduced various Western-style human resource management (HRM) practices to improve organizational performance. Such HRM innovations have resulted in new employment relations and paradoxical HR practices, which cannot be explained by the unitary institutional logic assumed by conventional HRM theories. Based on in-depth interviews of academic and administrative members, this study examines how Chinese universities struggle to reconcile competing institutional logics through HR innovations for ambidexterity. Our research reveals a unique transformation trajectory of personnel management in Chinese public universities. The findings indicate that human resource management in Chinese universities has been influenced by multiple logics of socialism, market, and corporation, heading along the neoliberal and managerial route while being shaped by strong state regulations. Chinese universities still have a long way to go to reconcile multiple institutional logics and achieve ambidexterity.

Extant literature has generated limited understanding of whether and how sustainable human resource management (HRM) will lead to better and more sustainable outcomes, such as enhanced employee well‐being and improved employee performance. Moving toward common good values and drawing on the job demands‐resources model, this study theorizes and tests the relationships among sustainable HRM practices, employee resilience, work engagement, and employee performance. The empirical results of a multilevel and multisource study in the Chinese context provide supporting evidence for our theoretical model. The findings demonstrate that sustainable HRM practices positively affect employee resilience, and lead to a high level of work engagement among employees. Employee resilience also has an indirect effect on employee performance through work engagement. This study, with its theoretical and practical implications, reveals a serial mediation mechanism through which sustainable HRM practices contribute to both employee well‐being and employee performance.