The idea that human resource management (HRM) plays a strategic role in generating sustainable competitive advantage for organisations or intermediate outcomes suchas innovation is a central tenet in HRM theory and research. Yet, the explanation for this relationship remains unclear. We contribute to understanding how HRM plays a role by integrating insights drawn from HRM and strategic management. We explore how configurations of highperformance work systems (HPWS) and leadership competence (LC) provide micro-foundations for organisational capabilities associated with innovation. We also examine the moderating role of external environmental conditions. We find support for the proposition that HPWS and LC contribute to capabilities associated with innovation. Importantly, in stable environments, the formation of the capabilities required for innovation is more strongly associated with HPWS, whereas in more dynamic environments, LC plays a more pronounced role. These findings have implications for understanding the strategic role HRM plays and for management practice.

PurposeMigrant workers often suffer from social exclusion in the workplace and therefore identify less with their organization and engage less with their work. To address this issue, the authors integrate research on migrant workers with research on the group engagement model to create a model for understanding and enhancing migrant worker engagement. This allows us to provide insight into how organizations can design their human resource management systems and practices to increase the work engagement of migrant workers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a survey study with over 4,000 employees from more than 500 workplaces in Australia to test the model.FindingsThe results of the multilevel analysis indicate that a procedurally fair work environment increases organizational identification, which in turn is associated with higher work engagement. The results also indicate that procedural justice climate is more important for migrant workers and increases their organizational identification and engagement.Originality/valueTo increase work engagement of migrant workers, organizations can establish a procedurally fair work environment in which cultural minorities experience unbiased policies and procedures, are able to express their opinions and participate in decision-making.

Purpose − Past integrated marketing communications (IMC) frameworks establish brand contacts as important sources of information and feedback. This paper discusses how the presence of multiple brand stakeholders and the proliferation of digital media increase the amount of brand information generated exponentially. When a firm fails to harness this information, it risks misalignment between brand identity and brand image, which, in turn, tarnishes brand equity. Design/methodology/approach − Past IMC frameworks are reviewed and extended to identify the specific brand contact points between multiple stakeholders that hold significant potential to dynamically reconfigure brand identity. Theoretical propositions regarding the IMC function's role in managing these contact points to generate brand equity are offered. Findings − The brand contacts described and their successful integration into a firm's brand-equity strategy extend current IMCbased brand-equity models and suggest fruitful, novel avenues for creating brand equity. Further, these brand contacts offer practical examples of how the scope of marketing communications can be redefined. Originality/value − This paper contributes to the body of research on the elevation of IMC to a strategic-level function. In addition to the synergistic communication of the brand offering, IMC needs to play a pivotal role in coordinating the contacts between the brand and stakeholders, and in extrapolating relevant brand insights from these contacts.

To model data from multi-item scales, many researchers default to a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach that restricts cross-loadings and residual correlations to zero. This often leads to problems of measurement-model misfit while also ignoring theoretically relevant alternatives. Existing research mostly offers solutions by relaxing assumptions about cross-loadings and allowing residual correlations. However, such approaches are critiqued as being weak on theory and/or indicative of problematic measurement scales. We offer a theoretically-grounded alternative to modeling survey data called an autoregressive confirmatory factor analysis (AR-CFA), which is motivated by recognizing that responding to survey items is a sequential process that may create temporal dependencies among scale items. We compare an AR-CFA to other common approaches using a sample of 8,569 people measured along five common personality factors, showing how the AR-CFA can improve model fit and offer evidence of increased construct validity. We then introduce methods for testing AR-CFA hypotheses, including cross-level moderation effects using latent interactions among stable factors and time-varying residuals. We recommend considering the AR-CFA as a useful complement to other existing approaches and treat AR-CFA limitations.

With the diffusion of team-based work organizations and flatter organizational hierarchies, many leaders empower employees to perform their work. Empowerment creates an interesting tension regarding coworker conflict, enhancing trust and giving employees more autonomy to prevent conflict, while also increasing workload and the potential for coworker conflict. Recent conflict research has focused on how characteristics of individuals, groups, and tasks contribute to conflict among coworkers. We extend this work by exploring the role of leader empowerment behavior (LEB) in influencing coworker conflict. Our model integrates research on LEB and coworker conflict to help organizations manage coworker conflict effectively. To test our model at the workplace level, we utilize data drawn from matched surveys of leaders and employees in 317 workplaces. We find that LEB relates negatively to relationship and task conflict through affective and cognitive trust in leaders. We further find that LEB relates negatively to relationship and task conflict through reduced workload, but only when employees have a clear role description. In contrast, if employees have unclear roles, LEB has a U-curve relationship with workload: a moderate level of LEB reduces workload, but a high level of LEB increases workload, in turn increasing coworker conflict. Finally, relationship conflict has a direct negative effect on task performance, whereas task conflict has an indirect negative effect through relationship conflict.