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Drawing on human capital theory, strategy scholars often emphasize the importance of firm-specific human capital as a source of competitive advantage (Hatch and Dyer, 2004; Mayer, Somaya, and Williamson, 2012; Wang, He, and Mahoney, 2009). A key reason for this focus is that, in theory, when employees have skills that are less valuable outside of the firm, this creates a gap between value they create and their opportunity cost at another firm. These gains are assumed to be shared between employees and firms and, in turn, can penalize workers for moving to another firm in the form of lower wages (Becker, 1993; Williamson, 1975). An obvious, if simplistic, recommendation for firms might be to invest in firm- specific human capital. However, this ignores the many human resource management dilemmas associated with firm-specific human capital. First, a key paradox of firm-specific human capital is that workers may systematically under-invest in such skills. However, there are many other challenges associated with firm-specific human capital. The stylized economic model does not take seriously heterogeneity of resources across firms, imperfect information about firm specificity, how firm specific knowledge and skills are accumulated, the relational context in which such investments are made or management implications at the upper echelons of the firm. All of these pose challenges on HR systems that must be addressed for firms to achieve a competitive advantage. In this symposium, we bring together a set of papers that explore dilemmas arising from investments in firm-specific human capital. Collectively, these papers suggest a set of problems that are best explored in both the HR and strategy literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between human resource management and employee well-being is receiving increasing attention. However, to date, there are no comprehensive insights into the effects of different strategic HR practices on the different dimensions of employee well-being, namely health well-being, happiness well-being, and relational well-being. Furthermore, the effects of different bundles of HR practices, i.e. HR systems, on employee well-being have only been partially explored. This paper addresses these research gaps by asking how central strategic HR practices as well as HR systems impact different forms of employee well-being. The empirical analysis is based on employee data from Germany. Findings reveal rather ambiguous effects of single HR practices: some practices have only positive effects on all the dimensions of employee well-being, some have mixed effects, and others have only negative effects. In contrast, the systems perspective reveals that the negative effects of specific HR practices on employee well-being can be mitigated by their inclusion in broader HR systems, since our findings confirmed that the combined use of strategic HR practices creates specific work environments with strong positive effects especially on happiness and relational well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the assumption that changes in the work environment are likely to impact deviant behaviors, both the dynamic nature of workplace deviance and the role of HRM in explaining such behaviors have been widely neglected. Drawing on longitudinal data from public hospital services, this study examines the linkage between organizational-level changes in HR systems and interpersonal deviance over a five-year period. The results indicate that perceived changes in an organization's HR system lead to corresponding increases or decreases in interpersonal deviance. This effect is moderated by initial HR system levels and diminishes over time. This study provides valuable insights into the importance of examining both levels and changes in HR systems for understanding when increases and decreases in HR systems are most impactful on deviant behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helping behavior, voluntary help to others to prevent work-related problems, is very often a crucial aspect of the individual-level work process. According to recent advances in human resource management (HRM) research, firm-level human resource systems can affect both individuals and their relationship-building processes. Using a multi-level approach on a sample of 128 employees and 14 managers from 14 companies, we examined cross-level influence of two distinct human resource system archetypes (commitment and compliance) on individual helping behavior. Moreover, we relate to context theory and investigate moderating role of two relational climates (communal-sharing and market-pricing). Our findings somewhat contradict theoretical predictions, which would suggest that the interaction of commitment human resource system and communal-sharing climate may be suitable for stimulating employee helping behavior. Contrastingly, we found a positive interaction between compliance HR system and market-sharing climate. Our findings imply that helping behavior might be less frequent and thus stand out in environments characterized by competition and compliance, but also that broader (cultural) characteristics need to be accounted for when interpreting results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]