Dancing in Tandem: The Role of HR Value Congruence and Line Manager-HR Manager Collaboration in Effective HR Implementation

Despite the increasing significance of partnerships between line managers and human resource managers in implementing HR practices, prior research has overlooked the potential interplay between these two groups in terms of collaboration and line managers' subsequent HR implementation behavior. By integrating insights from value congruence theory and social context theory, we formulated a model that examines how congruence or incongruence in HR values between line managers and HR managers influences line managers' HR implementation behaviors through their collaboration. We tested our hypotheses using multi-source and multi-wave data from 206 stores within a large retail chain organization (206 line managers, 206 HR managers, and 1227 employees). The polynomial regression results revealed that optimal collaboration and line managers' HR implementation behaviors occur when both parties agree on HR value, while disagreement negatively impacts these aspects. Moreover, we observed significant differences between the two levels of agreement (i.e., “high–high” congruence vs. “low–low” congruence). We further found that HR managers' political skill moderates the relationship between incongruence in HR value and collaboration levels. This research advances the understanding of HR implementation by emphasizing the importance of mutual agreement between line managers and HR managers and the role of HR managers' political skill.