The turn to employees in the measurement of human resource practices: A critical review and proposed way forward

Abstract

Although initially studies examining human resource management (HRM)–outcome relationships only used management-based ratings of HR practices, arguments have been advanced in favour of using employee-based ratings. To examine this, a systematic analysis of HRM–outcome studies published between 2000 and 2017 is performed, which shows that over time studies have indeed increasingly made use of employees as respondents to measures of human resource (HR) practices. An in-depth analysis of these measures of perceived HR practices revealed that various problems and issues can be identified when critically reviewing these measures. It is observed that considerable idiosyncrasy exists in measures of perceived HR practices, coupled with a lack of transparency in how these measures are often reported in existing studies. Also, a mixture of evaluative and descriptive items creates concerns about jingle fallacies in extant research and in turn about the validity of HRM–outcome results. Recommendations are provided to further advance the measurement and conceptualisation of this core construct.