Strong signals in HR management: How the configuration and strength of an HR system explain the variability in HR attributions

Meier‐Barthold, Madleen; Biemann, Torsten; Alfes, Kerstin Article — Published Version Strong signals in HR management: How the configuration and strength of an HR system explain the variability in HR attributions Human Resource Management Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Meier‐Barthold, Madleen; Biemann, Torsten; Alfes, Kerstin (2022) : Strong signals in HR management: How the configuration and strength of an HR system explain the variability in HR attributions, Human Resource Management, ISSN 1099-050X, Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Hoboken, USA, Vol. 62, Iss. 2, pp. 229-246, https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22146 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287793 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ORIGINAL ARTICLE Strong signals in HR management: How the configuration and strength of an HR system explain the variability in HR attributions Madleen Meier-Barthold 1 | Torsten Biemann 1 | Kerstin Alfes 2 1 Department of Management, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany 2 Chair of Organisation and Human Resource Management, ESCP Business School Berlin, Berlin, Germany Correspondence Madleen Meier-Barthold, Department of Management, University of Mannheim, Schloss, 68161 Mannheim, Germany. Email: [email protected] Abstract In explaining the effectiveness of a human resource (HR) system within an organization, scholars have turned their attention to HR attributions, which capture employees' perceptions about the intentions behind their organization's HR practices, and have demonstrated that an HR system's content and process of communication drive employees to form specific HR attributions. However, current research has not yet explained why HR attributions differ among employees. We investigate the variability in HR attributions among individuals and the organizational factors that influence this variability. Using signaling theory and the concept of situational strength, we argue that employees' HR attributions vary less when signals sent by HR management are unambiguous and the conveyed information is consistent. Using an online scenario-based experiment with 760 participants, our findings reveal that the configuration and the strength of an HR system as well as their combination have significant effects on the variability in HR attributions among employees, and these effects differ for the different HR attributions. KEYWORDS HR attributions, HR system, HR system strength, signaling, strong situations 1|INTRODUCTION Scholars in the field of strategic human resource management (HRM) have demonstrated that employees' perceptions about the intentions behind an organization's human resource (HR) practices –known as HR attributions –play an important role in understanding the link between HR practices and organizational performance (Hewett et al., 2018; Nishii et al., 2008; Sanders & Yang, 2016; Wang et al., 2020). While the majority of studies have focused on understanding how HR attributions are related to individual and organizational outcomes (e.g., Shantz et al., 2016; Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015), scholars have recently begun to understand the factors that cause the formation of HR attributions (Alfes et al., 2020; Hewett et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020) and have demonstrated that an organization's HR system influences employees' attributions about the reasons why this system was implemented. Based on the foundational work of Bowen and Ostroff (2004), strategic HR scholars have argued that HR systems should be designed and implemented in a way that elicits uniform responses among employees (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016; Van Rossenberg, 2021; Wang et al., 2020). When employees share an understanding of management's intentions, they show collective attitudes and behaviors which support their organization's strategic focus and ultimately result in higher organizational performance (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004). Additionally, a uniform understanding of goals fosters a shared sense of purpose, and employees develop similar thought processes, which facilitate working together effectively (Mathieu et al., 2000). While studies have demonstrated the importance of a uniform DOI: 10.1002/hrm.22146 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2022 The Authors. Human Resource Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. Hum Resour Manage. 2023;62:229–246. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm 229 understanding in HR attributions (Fan et al., 2020; Guest et al., 2021), we know very little about factors that lead to variability in HR attributions. This is because most scholars view variability in HR attributions as a measurement error that needs to be reduced (Van Rossenberg, 2021), rather than as a variable that can be purposefully studied. In line with Van Rossenberg (2021), we take a different perspective and suggest that it is important to analyze causes of differences in perceptions among employees and to explicitly hypothesize variance differences related to HR attributions. Hence, the purpose of the present article is to advance our understanding of the factors through which HR systems lead to low variability in HR attributions among employees within an organization. Building on signaling theory (Connelly et al., 2011) and the concept of situational strength (Mischel, 1973), we argue that employees draw from two sources of information when forming HR attributions: the content of an HR system and the process through which it is communicated to employees. We propose, first, that an HR system configuration with internal fit among HR practices sends a more unambiguous signal than an HR system configuration with internal misfit, resulting in lower variability in employees' attributions. Second, we suggest that the process of communicating the HR system to employees is relevant in influencing the variability in their response to the HR system. According to Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) concept of HR system strength, HR systems that are communicated in a distinct, consistent, and consensual manner lead to a uniform understanding among employees, suggesting low variability in HR attributions between individuals. Lastly, we expect an interaction of the configuration and strength of an HR system such that the variability is lower when consistent (compared to inconsistent) information is signaled. Our study makes a number of contributions to the strategic HR literature. First, we advance knowledge by disentangling how the strategic intentions and communication of the HR system shape employee perceptions of this HR system. Integrating the research streams of HR content, process of communication, and HR attributions, we are able to better understand how the different components of the HR system complement each other to explain employees' perceptions (Guest et al., 2021). Scholars have called for integrative research of these streams, which hitherto have largely been considered independently (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016; Van Beurden et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2020). Whereas an independent consideration of the three research streams will always lead to an incomplete understanding of the HR system, combining the three streams in one study enables us to provide a holistic understanding of how HR systems unfold in organizations. We show that the HR content and the process of communication interplay to affect employees' HR attributions. Specifically, we use signaling theory to identify features of the HR system related to HR content (i.e., HR system configuration, internal fit) and the process of communication (i.e., HR system strength) which result in uniform employees' HR attributions. We extend the work of Guest et al. (2021) by examining different HR system configurations and the process of communication, as well as by separating their signaling effects on HR attributions. Through the integration of research streams, we were also able to generate new insights into each of the individual streams. Particularly, we advance research on HR systems because we show how organizations' strategic intentions can be transferred to employees, underlining the importance of consistency in the HR system. Second, we advance research on HR system strength by operationalizing HR system strength as a characteristic of the HR system rather than as employees' perceptions of the strength of an HR system. Previous research on HR system strength has mainly measured individual perceptions of HR system strength. However, individual perceptions can be biased and therefore reflect an individual's idiosyncratic interpretation of the work context and the nature of the HR system. Ours is one of the first studies to operationalize HR system strength as a higher-level characteristic of the entire HR system, thereby being closer to its original conceptualization (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016). We also advance research on HR system strength by analyzing a thus-far seemingly un-studied fundamental proposition of the construct—that is, the effects of HR system strength on the variability of employee perceptions (Sanders et al., 2021). While previous research has focused on the effect of HR system strength on average perceptions, understanding how it affects variability in perceptions means understanding whether a strong HR system does, indeed, lead to strong situations. Third, we complement HR attributions research by advancing our understanding of the variability in employees' HR attributions and how uniform attributions can be generated. We go beyond existing research on the antecedents of HR attributions (Alfes et al., 2020; Guest et al., 2021; Sanders et al., 2019; Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015) by focusing on the differences in employees' attributions of the same HR system. Scholars so far have analyzed which factors, on average, lead to higher versus lower HR attributions. While this focus is valuable, it neglects the informative value of the potential variability among employees' attributions of an HR system. This variability gives insights into the ambiguity of management's motives and how an HR system has to be designed to align attributions within a group of employees. Our study is therefore of specific value for HR departments, who are often faced with the challenge of managing a heterogeneous workforce where employee responses need to be aligned in order to support the organization's overall strategic goals. Finally, our experimental design allows for credible causal statements about the link between HR systems and the variability in employees' HR attributions. In recent literature reviews, scholars criticized that, while the conceptual complexities of causal models in modern organizational and management research has increased, these complexities are often not adequately addressed in the design of empirical studies (e.g., Aguinis et al., 2017; Antonakis et al., 2010; Holland et al., 2017; Saylors & Trafimow, 2020). Being able to make credible causal statements is particularly valuable in HR process research, which seeks to map complex psychological processes and latent variables. For example, Sanders et al. (2021) identified the use of credible research designs as the most important improvement opportunity for HR system strength research. With inadequate research designs, scholars risk reporting false conclusions about relationships between constructs and about the effectiveness of management policies and practices. Following Saylors and Trafimow's (2020) call to focus on simple, but strong causal models, we provide a clear 230 MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL. theoretical narrative, simple conceptual causal model and a credible identification strategy to test the model, an experiment. Specifically, we conducted an online scenario-based experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to treatment groups that vary in terms of the configuration and strength of an HR system. Participants were recruited via Prolific with a cleaned sample size of 760. 2|VARIABILITY IN HR ATTRIBUTIONS At the core of attribution theories is the idea that individuals interpret and respond to events in their lives by reflecting about the perceived causes of these events (Kelley & Michela, 1980). When confronted with an event, such as an HR system, an individual consciously or unconsciously searches for and responds to information that indicates why a specific event happened, leading to the formation of causal attributions (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Kelley & Michela, 1980). Scholars have drawn from attribution theories to explain how employees interpret and respond to the HR practices in their organization (Hewett et al., 2018). Specifically, they suggest that employees attach meanings to HR practices by trying to understand management's intention behind their implementation. Employee attributions about why management implements specific HR practices have an influence on their attitudes and behaviors, which in turn ultimately affect organizational performance (Nishii et al., 2008). Nishii et al. (2008) developed five types of HR attributions that have since become established in the literature. Their typology distinguishes between internal and external HR attributions. Internal HR attributions refer to employees' perceptions that HR practices are implemented because of a choice made by management. Specifically, the authors argue that management can be motivated by an intention to align employees' attitudes and behaviors with business-related, strategic HR goals (e.g., Schuler & Jackson, 1987). Depending on an organization's strategic goals, HR practices can be implemented either to enhance product and service quality or to enhance cost effectiveness. Nishii et al. (2008) translated these strategic goals into HR attributions regarding service quality and cost reduction. A second dimension of management's motives behind the implementation of HR practices is related to its employee-oriented philosophy (e.g., Osterman, 1994). The literature differentiates between a philosophy aimed at maximizing employee well-being and one aimed at maximizing employee efficiency. Again, Nishii et al. (2008) use these potential philosophies to derive types of HR attributions regarding employee well-being and employee exploitation respectively. Nishii et al. (2008) further labeled service quality and employee well-being as commitment-focused HR attributions, whereas cost reduction and employee exploitation were grouped as control-focused HR attributions. A fifth HR attribution included in Nishii et al.'s (2008) typology is an external HR attribution, union compliance, which captures perceptions that the organization designs its HR practices to abide by external pressures that are uncontrollable by the organization. Although we collected data on all five attributions to ensure the reliability of Nishii et al.'s (2008) original measurement scale, we develop hypotheses regarding the four internal HR attributions only. This is because the factors in which we are interested are controllable by the organization in that top management makes a conscious decision to implement a certain configuration and strength of HR system. According to attribution theories, individuals differ in how they process and attach meaning to observed information (Kelley & Michela, 1980; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Specifically, an organization's HR system can be used as a source of information through which management sends signals (Guest et al., 2021). The information that HR management signals then influences employees' attributions. However, signals can vary in their strength (Connelly et al., 2011), with weak signals leaving room for various interpretations. Consequently, it is possible that not all employees interpret an HR system alike and therefore differ with regard to the attributions they form about why HR practices are implemented in their organization (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016). In the following sections, we discuss the extent to which two features of an HR system (content and process of communication) can be perceived as signals sent by management which lead to low variability in HR attributions among employees. 3|THE INTERNAL FIT OF AN HR SYSTEM AND VARIABILITY IN HR ATTRIBUTIONS HR management sends a signal to employees through the actual HR practices in place. As employees are exposed to a system of HR practices, the HR practices included in the system (i.e., the content of the HR system) enable employees to make sense of the strategic goal that an organization's HR management pursues (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016) and to reach a conclusion regarding why certain HR practices are implemented in their organization (Alfes et al., 2020; Guest et al., 2021; Sanders et al., 2019; Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015). According to signaling theory, signals are most effective in conveying the signaler's (i.e., HR management's) information to the receiver (i.e., employees) when the signals are characterized by clarity, frequency, intensity, and salience (Connelly et al., 2011). A strong signal reduces room for interpretation and clearly demonstrates the implications of certain attitudes and behaviors (Meyer et al., 2010). Based on these considerations, we argue that systems of HR practices lead to lower variability in attributions among employees when there is internal fit (compared to internal misfit) between the practices included in the system. The internal fit of an HR system describes the degree to which the practices in a system are coherent, consistent, and strategically integrated (Delery & Doty, 1996). HR systems with internal fit comprise practices oriented toward one strategic goal (Becker et al., 1997;Delery,1998). Delery and Doty (1996) proposed two ideal types of HR systems, a market-oriented HR system and an employeeoriented HR system. An ideal-type market-oriented HR system exclusively comprises practices directed toward efficiency and competition, like results-oriented appraisals and profit sharing and therefore signals productivity. Conversely, an ideal-type employee-oriented HR system focuses on long-term employment relationships within the organization and is characterized by practices such as internal career opportunities, extensive training and development, employment security and participation and therefore signals commitment. MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL.231 Both types of HR systems, because of their internal fit, advocate high levels of clarity and consistency in the information transmitted to employees (Boxall et al., 2011). In other words, HR systems with internal fit serve as strong signals of management's intentions. However, HR systems can also have internal misfit and consist of practices directed toward opposing strategic goals, sometimes referred to as deadly combinations (Becker et al., 1997; Kepes & Delery, 2007). An example of such an HR system is one that includes both extensive trainings for teamwork and performance appraisals that reward individualistic behavior (Boxall et al., 2011). With internal misfit, the signal is weaker and less indicative of an organization's focus. Ultimately, this leads to high variability in employees' HR attributions. Hypothesis 1. Market-oriented (H1a) and employeeoriented (H1b) HR systems have a lower variability in employees' HR attributions than HR systems with internal misfit. 4|THESTRENGTHOFANHRSYSTEM AND VARIABILITY IN HR ATTRIBUTIONS A second signal relates to the process through which an HR system is delivered to employees (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016). HR scholars emphasize the importance of employer–employee communication, suggesting that the quality of management's HR communication has a significant impact on how employees perceive HR (Den Hartog et al., 2013). Bowen and Ostroff (2004) argued that the effects of an HR system depend on how the HR system is conveyed and communicated and whether a consistent message about the HR content is sent to the employees, regardless of the actual HR content. Based on Mischel's (1973) concept of situational strength and Kelley's (1973) covariation model, Bowen and Ostroff (2004) defined three metafeatures of an HR system that together make up a strong HR system. Distinctiveness refers to the degree to which HR practices are visible, understandable and relevant for goal achievement as well as the degree of legitimacy of the HR function. Consistency reflects the degree to which HR practices establish clear cause-effect relationships, are valid and are communicated through consistent messages across employees. Finally, consensus describes the degree of agreement among message senders and whether the HR practices are fair. The more distinct, consistent, and consensual a particular HR system is, the less ambiguous signals are sent by HRM about the nature of the HR system, rendering it more likely that employees will develop a uniform understanding about the HR content. Specifically, employees will have a clearer understanding of what is expected when HR management engages in clear communication about the different HR practices and encourages consistent application throughout the organization. As a result, if HR system strength is high, employees will have a clear and consistent understanding of the HR system, leading to lower variability in employees' attributions. Conversely, if HR system strength is low, employees will be faced with ambiguous information, which is likely to result in variability in HR attributions. Hypothesis 2. The higher the strength of an HR system is, the lower will be the variability in employees' HR attributions. 5|COMBINED EFFECT OF CONFIGURATION AND STRENGTH OF AN HR SYSTEM Although the internal fit and strength of an HR system have direct effects on the variability in HR attributions, we argue that it is also important to consider the combined effect of the configuration and strength of an HR system. Meyer et al. (2010) noted that, ultimately, the strength of a situation is a function of the single effects of each of the signals but that the precise form of this function remains unclear, especially when signals contradict each other. When employees are confronted with multiple HR signals (i.e., HR system configuration, strength of an HR system), they will interpret the combined information of all the signals to come to a meaningful conclusion about what is expected from them. Contradicting information leads to ambiguity and variability in how employees form their attributions. We argue that the configuration of the HR system and the strength of the HR system are two separate signals that interact. As such, each of those signals holds information that feed employees' interpretations about what is expected from them. The configuration of the HR system holds information about the strategic goals that an organization's HR management pursues (i.e., content), while the strength of the HR system holds information about how the HR system is delivered to employees (i.e., process). Below we develop arguments for the different combinations of the configuration and strength of an HR system and the subsequent implications for variability in HR attributions. We focus our argumentation on the consistency of these signals. The four combinations are shown in Table 1. A market-oriented HR system with internal fit signals HR management's intention to focus on productivity in the employment relationship (Delery & Doty, 1996), because it consists of HR practices such as results-oriented appraisals or no job guarantees. This suggests that the organization keeps investments in its employer–employee relationship to the bare minimum needed to get the work done. With low investments into the employer–employee relationship via the configuration of the HR system, signals seem consistent when HR management also invests little into the communication of said HR system. A low HR system strength equally corresponds to low investments into the employer–employee relationship, because it requires far less time, effort, and resources to establish compared to a high HR system strength (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016). We therefore argue that signals are consistent when HR management does not communicate about the market-oriented HR system in a distinct, consistent, and consensual manner, but instead leaves such communication diffuse. In this case, the HR system configuration and the communication of it represent low effort and investment into the HR system, and instead emphasize the focus on productivity inherent in a marketoriented system with internal fit. When efforts and investments in HR are consistently low, employees will feel their perception of 232 MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL. management's productivity motive is confirmed, and the signaling effect of the market-oriented HR system will be strengthened. In contrast, if an HR management chooses a market-oriented HR system, but at the same time invests resources into the communication of it to employees, the HR approach is no longer consistent. Implementing high HR system strength corresponds to high investment in communication and information. Therefore, we believe that employees will perceive discrepant signals between the organization's relatively low investment into its employer–employee relationship via the HR system configuration and the relatively high investment in communicating this. We believe that this discrepancy will lead to confusion and skepticism regarding the purpose of HR, resulting in relatively high variability in employees' attributions. Hence, the signaling effect of the market-oriented HR system is weakened. We therefore expect lower variability in HR attributions when HR managers combine a market-oriented system with low HR system strength compared to high HR system strength. Our argumentation is aligned with Ostroff and Bowen (2016), who proposed that lower strength might be the optimal choice for HR systems that focus on control and competition. An HR system with internal fit focused on employee orientation signals HR management's intention to focus on commitment in the employment relationship. Consistent with this commitment motive is a communication style that puts effort into the employer–employee relationship via a clear communication to employees—that is high HR system strength (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016). Hence, the communication of the HR system is consistent with the information from the configuration of the HR system. As a result, employees' perception of management's commitment motive is confirmed, and the signaling effect of the employee-oriented HR system is strengthened. Conversely, when HR managers design an employee-oriented HR system but do not adequately communicate it to employees (i.e., low HR system strength), then the information signaled through the communication is not consistent with the information signaled through the configuration of the HR system. Employees' perception of management's commitment motive is thus less clear, leading to higher variability of employees' attribution. We therefore expect lower variability in HR attributions when HR managers combine an employee-oriented system with high (compared to low) HR system strength. This is again in line with Ostroff and Bowen (2016), who propose that high HR system strength might be most important for HR systems that focus on commitment. Hypothesis 3. HR system strength moderates the relationship between HR system and the variability in employees' HR attributions, such that the variability is lower for consistent signals (i.e., market-oriented HR system combined with low HR system strength, employeeoriented system combined with high HR system strength) than for inconsistent signals. 6|METHOD 6.1 |Design and sample The proposed model was tested using an online scenario-based experiment. We registered our experimental design prior to data collection on AsPredicted.org, a pre-registration platform by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Our pre-registration document can be accessed at https://aspredicted.org/th94q.pdf. The experimental design is shown in Figure 1. We examined the effects of the configuration and strength of an HR system on HR attributions using a 4 (HR system configurations)  2 (HR system strength) between-subjects design. Each of the eight conditions was represented through a scenario. All scenarios were drafted around a fictitious office furniture manufacturing company, called FurniFuture. We decided to use a fictitious company to be able to compare multiple different HR systems and to avoid perceptual biases. A general description of FurniFuture (see Appendix A) was followed by the manipulation of the internal fit of the HR system and the manipulation of the strength of the HR system. Based on these scenarios, participants were asked to evaluate their HR attributions as well as to provide information on their demographics and characteristics. Two attention checks and three manipulation checks were incorporated. The manipulation checks tested whether participants grasped (1) the strategic focus of the presented HR system (i.e., “Does the set of HRM activities rather focus on employee productivity (i.e., efficiency and competition) or on employee commitment (i.e., long-term employment relationships)?”), (2) the internal fit of the presented HR system (i.e., “Is the set of HRM activities coherent and consistent (i.e., are the HRM activities oriented towards similar goals versus opposing goals)?”), and (3) the presented strength of the HR TABLE 1 Categorization of consistent and inconsistent signals Low HRSS High HRSS Marketoriented HR system Consistent signals for: •Low service quality attributions •Low employee wellbeing attributions •High cost reduction attributions •High employee exploitation attributions Inconsistent signals Employeeoriented HR system Inconsistent signals Consistent signals for: •High service quality attributions •High employee well-being attributions •Low cost reduction attributions •Low employee exploitation attributions Abbreviation: HRSS, HR system strength. MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL.233 system (i.e., “Does the HR management put effort and care into communicating the set of HRM activities to employees?”). Participants were recruited via Prolific (https://www.prolific.co/). We followed recommendations to pre-screen participants to have a minimum of 100 previous submissions and a minimum approval rate of 95 (Cheung et al., 2017; Porter et al., 2019). After ensuring that the manipulations and question items were comprehensible and worked as intended with a pretest of 80 participants, we recruited a sample size of 802 participants for the actual run of the survey. We estimated the completion time of the study to be around 12 min and set the monetary incentive to £1.50. Of the initial sample of 802 participants, we identified and removed a total of 42 cases where the wrong survey completion code was entered on Prolific (3 cases), at least one of the two attention checks was failed (40 cases) and/or the response pattern indicated careless responding according to the longstring method (maximum longstring >6 for nine consecutive items, three cases). For more information on careless responding, we refer the interested reader to, for example, Meade and Craig (2012) or Goldammer et al. (2020). The final sample size was 760. Participants' gender was distributed as follows: 380 female (50.0%), 379 male (49.87%), and 1 other. Ages ranged from 19 to 71 with a mean of 39.12. Most participants came from the United Kingdom (448 cases, 58.95%) and the United States of America (149 cases, 19.61%), followed by Portugal (22 cases, 2.89%), Canada (14 cases, 1.84%), Mexico (14 cases, 1.84%), and Spain (14 cases, 1.84%). We also decided to include the criterion on Prolific that participants should be employed at a for-profit organization and asked for type of employment in the questionnaire. Most participants indicated that they were employed (704 cases, 92.63%), while 18 were students, 17 were self-employed, and the rest were either unemployed, unable to work or retired. Around 45% (343 cases) held a Bachelor's degree as the highest education level, while around 18% (135 cases) had a higher and 37% (282 cases) a lower level of education. Average completion time was 7.3 minutes. 6.2 |Measures 6.2.1 | HR system configuration We operationalized the HR system configurations by designing four configurations of HR systems with either internal fit or internal misfit. The four HR systems all consisted of the same 10 HR practices that are prevalent in the literature (for a review, see Lepak et al., 2006). These are job design, recruitment/selection, training/development, performance evaluations, compensation/rewards, promotion/career, employment security, participation/empowerment, employee voice/ grievance, and information sharing. We followed Delery and Doty's (1996) typology of HR systems and conceptualized that each HR practice could correspond either to a market-oriented HR system or an employee-oriented HR system (see Appendix B). The market-oriented HR system comprised practices directed toward efficiency and competition, while the employee-oriented HR system focused on creating long-term employment relationships. For example, the HR practice performance appraisal read “The company does not guarantee job security. It is not uncommon that employees are dismissed”in the market-oriented condition and “The company almost guarantees job security. Employees are very seldomly dismissed”in the employeeoriented condition. We strongly relied on Delery and Doty's (1996) and Lepak and Snell's (2002) conceptualizations and formulations when developing our manipulations. We configured four HR systems with different numbers of employee-oriented and market-oriented HR practices (see Table 2). In System 1, all 10 HR practices were market-oriented. Systems 2 and 3 were HR systems with five of the practices being market-oriented HR system configuration based on dichotomous manifestations of 10 HR practices [1]: - Job design - Recruitment/selection - Training/development - Performance evaluations - Compensation/rewards - Promotion/career - Employment security - Participation/empowerment - Employee voice/grievance - Information sharing HR attributions [2]: - Service quality - Employee well-being -Cost reduction - Employee exploitation H1 H2 HR system strength [1]: 1) Low 2) High Experimental treatments Outcomes H3 FIGURE 1 Overview of experimental design. Note: [1] =manipulated; [2] =survey data 234 MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL. and five being employee-oriented. Finally, System 4 consisted of 10 employee-oriented HR practices. If all HR practices within a system were configured with the same orientation (Systems 1 and 4), the HR system was considered to have internal fit. If the HR practices were configured with alternating orientations (Systems 2 and 3), the HR system was considered to have internal misfit. 6.2.2 | HR system strength Our operationalization of the strength of an HR system closely followed the original conceptualization by Bowen and Ostroff (2004). We included all subdimensions and a description of overall HR system strength in the manipulations. We specifically formulated our manipulations of HR system strength along the meta-features of distinctiveness (visibility, understandability, relevance, legitimacy of authority), consistency (instrumentality, validity, consistent HR messages) and consensus (agreement among HR decision makers) and used Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) wording to develop the manipulations. We used our own operationalization of HR system strength because we did not find an appropriate measure in the previous literature (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016) and because we aimed to measure it as a higher-level characteristic of the HR system and to clearly demarcate the construct from the content of the HR system (Katou et al., 2021) by focusing on the communication aspect of the construct. This is in line with Ostroff and Bowen (2016, p. 200), who stated that “the premise of HR system strength rests on the communication process of HR.”We tested the internal validity of our operationalization using an additional validation study, and found that it is a viable way to manipulate the construct (for more information please refer to the Appendix S1). For precision, we limited the manipulation of HR system strength to two conditions, resulting in a dichotomous variable, where 0 indicated low strength and 1 indicated high strength (see Appendix C). In the high strength condition, the scenario portrayed an HR putting maximum effort into adequately communicating the HR system to employees in a distinct, consistent, and consensual manner. In the low strength condition, the scenario portrayed an HR management putting no effort into communicating the HR system to employees. The conditions were randomly varied. 6.2.3 | HR attributions HR attributions were measured using the items developed by Nishii et al. (2008). Each item referred to one of the four internal HR attributions: service quality, employee well-being, cost reduction, and employee exploitation. We used the scale to measure an individual's attributions toward the entire HR system. For example, to measure the service quality attribution, we asked participants to rate whether the fictitious organization provided the HR system that it did “in order to help employees deliver quality service.”Participants were asked to state their level of agreement with each of the items based onafive-pointLikertscale(1=“strongly disagree,”5=“strongly agree”). 6.3 |Analyses Because we deliberately alternated the orientations for the HR practices in Systems 2 and 3 in a random manner and because both were HR systems with internal misfit (i.e., had the same amount of employee- and market-oriented practices), we grouped them together for the analyses. Thus, we ended up with three treatment groups according to the types of HR systems (market-oriented, misfit, employee-oriented): T market ,T misfit ,T employee . TABLE 2 Coding scheme of the four HR systems HR system 1 HR system 2 HR system 3 HR system 4 Number of employee-oriented [market-oriented] HR practices 0 [10] 5 [5] 5 [5] 10 [0] Internal fit Fit Misfit Misfit Fit HR practices: Job design MME E Recruitment/selection M E M E Training/development M M E E Performance evaluations M E M E Compensation/rewards M M E E Promotion/career M E M E Employment security M M E E Participation/empowerment M E M E Employee voice/grievance M M E E Information sharing M E M E Abbreviations: E, employee-oriented HR practice; M, market-oriented HR practices. MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL.235 To test the hypotheses, we computed the variances of each of the four HR attributions for different groups within the sample. We used the classical Levene's test based on the absolute deviations from the mean to compare the variances between groups (Levene, 1960), because the distributions of our four dependent variables were nonnormal, and Levene's test is considered a powerful and robust test for non-normal distributions (Gastwirth et al., 2009; Stevens, 2012). Specifically, it is one of the most popular approaches to compare variances under non-normal data. Hypotheses 1a and 1b were tested by computing the variances of each of the four HR attributions for the three HR system configurations and comparing the variances of both groups of internal fit with the group of internal misfit respectively. Specifically, we tested whether the variances in HR attributions were significantly different between T market and T misfit (H1a) as well as between T employee and T misfit (H1b). This resulted in two variance tests per HR attribution. For Hypothesis 2, we tested whether there was a significant difference between the variances in the low and high strength conditions for each of the four HR attributions, resulting in one variance test per HR attribution. Lastly, we tested the hypothesized interactions between HR system configuration and HR system strength (Hypothesis 3) by splitting up the observations in the sample into the low and high strength conditions as well as the three HR system configurations, and we computed the variances for the resulting six conditions per HR attribution. Because we were interested in interaction effects on the variance of our dependent variables (instead of the mean), typical interaction tests were not possible. Thus, we developed an approach that compared the simple slopes across variance values per condition of the moderator. This approach is based on basic definitions of an interaction effect (Aiken et al., 1991)as well as advancements in the statistical literature on variance trends (e.g., slope of linear regression line to investigate increasing or decreasing trend in variances; Gastwirth et al., 2009). We generated the simple slope lines of the variances across HR system configurations for the low and the high strength conditions, respectively, and computed the absolute difference in slopes. To test the significance of the observed absolute difference in slopes, we created bootstrapped samples (B =1000) and computed the absolute difference in slopes for each bootstrapped sample. We then calculated the percentage of bootstrapped test statistics that were greater than the observed test statistic. For example, we found a bootstrapped test statistic more extreme than the observed test statisticinonly10of1000cases(p=0.01), we would consider the observed test statistic to be significant. All statistical analyses were conducted using the software R for statistical computing (R Core Team, 2021). The lawstat package (Hui et al., 2008) contains the respective function to compute Levene's test. The R code is available upon request. 7|RESULTS Before testing the hypotheses, we ran some preliminary analyses. Three manipulation checks showed that the experimental scenarios worked as intended. Manipulation check 1 revealed that the higher the number of employee-oriented HR practices in an HR system, the higher individuals perceive its focus to be on commitment rather than productivity (b=1.08, p<0.001). Manipulation check 2 showed that the two HR systems with internal fit were perceived as more coherent (i.e., the HR practices are oriented toward similar goals versus opposing goals) than the systems with internal misfit (t market vs. misfit =1.73, p market vs. misfit =0.08; t employee vs. misfit =10.43, p employee vs. misfit <0.001). And manipulation check 3 found that individuals perceived that HR management puts in less effort into communicating the HR systems to employees when HR system strength was low versus high (t low vs. high =34.41, p< 0.001). Results from our descriptive statistics (Table 3) and correlations of the main variables (Table 4) indicated, first, that a more employeeoriented HR system related to higher commitment-focused HR attributions and a more market-oriented HR system related to higher control-focused HR attributions. Second, we found a significant positive correlation between service quality and employee well-being (r=0.59) and between cost reduction and employee exploitation attributions (r=0.33) respectively. We also found that the service quality and employee well-being attributions were negatively related to the cost reduction attribution (r=0.13; r=0.50), but positively related to employee exploitation attribution (r=0.27; r=0.04). This is interesting as most studies (e.g., Guest et al., 2021; Nishii et al., 2008; Sanders et al., 2019) conceptualized commitment-and control-focused HR attributions as rather opposite. Third, we saw that the variance of the employee exploitation attributions was lower than the one of the well-being attributions. Similarly, Alfes et al. (2020) reported lower a variance in performance attributions compared to well-being attributions. In Hypotheses 1a and 1b, we stated that HR systems with internal fit resulted in a lower variability in employees' HR attributions than HR systems with internal misfit. The variances of T market and T employee were lower than the variances of T misfit for seven out of the eight comparisons (Table 5). Yet, not all of these differences were significant. We found that T market led to significantly lower variances in how individuals form well-being attribution (W=16.19, p< 0.001) compared to T misfit . We also found a significant decrease in variance in the well-being attribution in T employee compared to T misfit (W=9.00, p=0.003). Thus, Hypotheses 1a and 1b were partially supported. For Hypothesis 2, we were interested in whether a high strength of an HR system resulted in lower variability in HR attributions compared to a low HR system strength. We found partial support for Hypothesis 2, as there was a significant decrease in variance for higher levels of HR system strength for the service quality (W=16.54, p< 0.001) and employee exploitation attributions (W=13.28, p< 0.001), but not for the well-being and cost reduction attributions. The results are shown in Table 6. Hypothesis 3suggested an interaction effect between the configuration and the strength of an HR system on the variability in HR attributions among employees. 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Carrots, sticks, and performance: Is it commitment, or commitment plus control? Academy of Management Perspectives,35(2), 208–218. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2018.0064 SUPPORTING INFORMATION Additional supporting information can be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of this article. How to cite this article: Meier-Barthold, M., Biemann, T., & Alfes, K. (2023). Strong signals in HR management: How the configuration and strength of an HR system explain the variability in HR attributions. Human Resource Management, 62(2), 229–246. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22146 APPENDIX A: GENERAL SCENARIO DESCRIPTION Imagine that you work for FurniFuture, a medium‐sized office furniture manufacturer. The company specializes in individualized workspace solutions with a focus on functionality. It employs around 244 MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL. 800 people in four different locations and had an annual revenue of around 300 million USD in 2020. The human resource (HR) department at FurniFuture decided to establish certain human resource management (HRM) activities in order to manage work and people within the organization. Depending on the job, the specific set of HRM activities varies for each employee. HR practice Market‐orientation Employee‐orientation Job design The company predefines which tasks need to be performed and how they need to be carried out. For example, employees do not have the autonomy to make changes in the way they perform their jobs. The company does not specifically predefine which tasks need to be performed and how they need to be carried out. For example, employees have the autonomy to make changes in the way they perform their jobs. Recruitment/ selection The company focuses on selecting the best possible candidate for the job for the lowest wage level. For example, it involves a comprehensive process of screening many job candidates to find the best fit for the job. The company focuses on selecting candidates based on their abilities to contribute to strategic objectives and their potential to learn. For example, it involves selecting the best all around candidate, regardless of the specific job. Training/ development The company does not provide a lot of training and development opportunities. Formal training programs are rare. You are expected to focus on improving your current job performance. For example, the company pays only for those trainings that are absolutely necessary for you to perform your current job and that increase your productivity. The company provides extensive training and development opportunities for you to advance your skills and knowledge. You are expected to participate in various training programs on a regular basis. For example, the company offers a great variety of trainings to advance one's skills (e.g., presentation trainings). Your supervisor supports your participation in these training sessions every quarter. Performance evaluations Performance appraisals for employees are based on objective, quantifiable results. They are meant to assess the quantity of your output and measure your productivity. When rating your performance, for example, your supervisor considers whether you met, missed or exceeded agreed‐upon target figures such as your productivity level. Performance appraisals for employees are based on input from multiple sources (peers, subordinates, supervisors, etc.). They are meant to assess your learning and personal advancement. For example, you have voluntarily assisted one of your colleagues with their work. In your last performance rating, your supervisor took this behavior into account. Compensation/ rewards To compensate its employees, the company uses a basic salary that is based on the market average. The salary is designed to ensure labor costs are managed effectively. For example, if incentives are used, they focus on shortterm productivity targets. To compensate its employees, the company uses a competitive, high salary. The salary is designed to focus on an employee's long‐term performance. For example, the company uses stock options and other forms of long‐term compensation. Promotion/career There is very little use of internal career ladders within the company. The company emphasizes open competition and new recruits at all levels. For example, the company is more likely to acquire individuals who already possess the needed skills. There is extensive use of well‐defined career ladders within the company. The company emphasizes promotion from within. For example, there are flexible opportunities for you to advance your career within the company. Employment security The company does not guarantee job security. It is not uncommon that employees are dismissed. For example, to counter situations in which the company is facing economic problems, it is possible that employees will be dismissed. The company almost guarantees job security. Employees are very seldomly dismissed. For example, even if the company was facing economic problems, the company's employment protection legislation prevents employees from dismissal. Participation/ empowerment The company does not offer a lot of involvement possibilities for you to take part in decision‐making. Management makes decisions “behind closed doors.”It barely takes employees' feedback into account. For example, your supervisor usually makes important decisions herself. The company offers a lot of involvement possibilities for you to take part in decision‐making. Management takes employees' feedback into account when making decisions. For example, your supervisor asks for your advice when making important decisions. Employee voice/ grievance The company does not encourage you to voice your opinion. For example, there are no formal grievance procedures in place. The company encourages you to voice your opinion. For example, there are many formal grievance procedures in place where you can complain about decisions affecting your work. Information sharing Management does not ensure a constant information flow to employees. For example, your supervisor shares little information about current opportunities and challenges with you. Management ensures a constant information flow to employees. For example, your supervisor shares a lot of information about current opportunities and challenges with you. APPENDIX B: MANIPULATIONS OF THE HR PRACTICES WITHIN AN HR SYSTEM MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL.245 APPENDIX C: MANIPULATIONS OF THE STRENGTH OF AN HR SYSTEM Low HR system strength High HR system strength Regardless of the specific set of HRM activities, the HR department of FurniFuture does not put any effort in adequately conveying and communicating it to the employees. Regardless of the specific set of HRM activities, the HR department of FurniFuture puts considerable effort in adequately conveying and communicating it to the employees. Overall, the HR department does not draw much attention to the set of HRM activities and gives very sparse information on it. As a result, you—as an employee—do not have a clear understanding of which HRM activities are implemented and what each HRM activity involves. The HR department does not communicate whether the set of HRM activities is consistent within itself and across time. On top of that, you are not informed about what the HRM activities are meant to achieve and which consequences they have in reality. Therefore, you do not know whether the set of HRM activities is relevant to your individual as well as organizational goals. Even HR decision‐makers, like HR managers or line managers, disagree on the purpose of the set of HRM activities and present a vague and nonuniform picture of it. Overall, the HR department draws much attention to the set of HRM activities and gives lots of information on it. As a result, you—as an employee—have a clear understanding of which HRM activities are implemented and what each HRM activity involves. The HR department communicates that the set of HRM activities is consistent within itself and across time. On top of that, you are informed about what the HRM activities are meant to achieve and which consequences they have in reality. Therefore, you know that the set of HRM activities is relevant to your individual as well as organizational goals. Even HR decisionmakers, like HR managers or line managers, agree on the purpose of the set of HRM activities and present a precise and uniform picture of it. In general, the HR department of FurniFuture has a rather low status and credibility within the organization such that top management does not support it. In general, the HR department of FurniFuture has a high status and credibility within the organization such that top management supports it. 246 MEIER-BARTHOLD ET AL.