A Meta-Analysis of Employee HR Attributions and Their Relationships With Employee-Perceived High-Performance Work Systems and Employee Outcomes

Research on HR attributions has received a considerable amount of attention in the study of employee perceptions of human resource management (HRM). This increased attention is based on the premise that employee attributions about why certain HR practices are implemented significantly influence employee outcomes. In this study, we review and meta-analytically examine the relationships between two major types of HR attributions (i.e., commitment- and control-focused) and various employee outcomes (i.e., employee vitality and engagement, work attitudes, and job performance). We also test several boundary conditions (e.g., the target of HR attributions) that may influence these relationships using multi-level meta-regression analysis. In addition, we meta-analytically examine the relationships between two major HR attributions and their key antecedent—employee-perceived high-performance work systems (HPWS). Using the meta-analytic data, we perform a path analysis to test a theory-driven model that links employee-perceived HPWS to commitment-focused and control-focused HR attributions and, ultimately, employee outcomes. We then conduct a general dominance analysis to compare the relative importance of employee-perceived HPWS and the two types of HR attributions. As a supplementary analysis, we meta-analyze the impact of demographic variables in shaping commitment- and control-focused HR attributions. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and empirical implications of our findings, along with future research directions.