Community experiences in the strategic human resource management black box

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Human Resource Management
• Community Psychology

Background:

• Employee and organizational outcomes are linked to workplace community experiences (sense of community [SOC], sense of community responsibility [SOC-R]).
• Limited understanding exists on how these community constructs function within strategic human resource management (SHRM).
• The SHRM 'black box' is where psychological and social variables influence employee perceptions and organizational outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of community experiences within the SHRM 'black box'.
• To empirically test the relationships between high-involvement work climate, psychological need satisfaction, SOC, SOC-R, organizational identification, and organizational citizenship behaviors.
• To theoretically ground the importance of community experiences in HRM.

Main Methods:

• Data collected from 312 employees across multiple organizations.
• Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) used for data analysis.
• Hypotheses tested to examine the proposed relationships.

Main Results:

• Community experiences play a significant role within the strategic human resource management 'black box'.
• High-involvement work climate, psychological need satisfaction, SOC, SOC-R, and organizational identification positively influence organizational citizenship behaviors.
• The findings provide empirical support for the importance of community in the workplace.

Conclusions:

• Human resource practitioners and scholars should prioritize the evaluation and promotion of workplace community experiences.
• Fostering a sense of community can lead to more socially sustainable organizations.
• Employees can thrive and organizations can achieve collective goals through enhanced community focus.