Antecedents and outcomes of enabling HR practices: The paradox of consistency and flexibility

Abstract

Reconciling competing demands for consistent HR implementation and providing individualized supervisor support to employees has always been a challenge in strategic human resource management. Given that there is burgeoning evidence that frontline managers (FLMs) are at the center of HR implementation, we examine how the organization helps FLMs reconcile demands for consistent HR implementation and deliver individualized support to those under their supervision. With the data from 181 FLMs and 311 employees reported to these FLMs, we find that FLMs' perceived enabling HR practices mediate the relationship between high‐performance work systems and FLMs' willingness to be flexible (WTBF). Furthermore, WTBF mediates the relationship between FLMs' perceived enabling HR practices and consistent HR implementation and between FLMs' perceived enabling HR practices and employees' individualized support. Our study offers new insights by highlighting that an effective HR system is not merely improving FLMs' HR competency and knowledge but capturing FLMs' WTBF in carrying on a broad range of HR tasks. Furthermore, our study provides an expanded and novel understanding that FLMs will likely face two opposite HR tasks that coexist and should be dealt with simultaneously as a pair. We then discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest future research directions.