An Empirical Study Of High Performance Work System Union-Management Relations Climate And Employee Relations Climate

With China’s rapid economic growth, employee relations in the enterprises become increasingly poorer. Simultaneously, labor disputes and collective labor conflicts are more frequent. The non-harmonious employee relations have become the huge obstacle to China’s economic and social development. Therefore, to build the harmonious employee relations climate is critical for the development of enterprises. While employee relations climate is considered as the reflection of the quality of the relationship between employers with employees, the existing empirical literature is underdeveloped. Based on human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations perspectives from employee relations field, the study is the first to discuss the influence of high performance work system (HPWS) and union-management relations climate on employee relations climate. Meanwhile, to test the critical role of employee relations climate, the relationships between employee relations climate and employee attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction and affective commitment) have been examined. In addition, according to social information processing theory and social context theory, we test the mediating role of employee relations climate in the relationships between HPWS, union-management relations climate and employee attitudes.For the examination of the issues above, we collect data from the enterprises in Shandong, Jiangsu, Fujian and Guangdong province. Finally we acquire the valid questionnaires from162HR supervisors and1003employees in the162companies. Our empirical results indicate that:(1) HPWS has significant impact on firm performance; union-management relations climate has a U relationship with employee relations climate; union-management relations climate doesn’t moderate the relationship between HPWS and employee relations climate.(2) Employee relations climate has significant influence on job satisfaction and affective commitment.(3) HPWS positively affects job satisfaction and affective commitment, and employee relations climate plays the full mediating role in these relationships.(4) Union-management relations climate has significant impact on job satisfaction while union-management relations climate has a U relationship with affective commitment.(5) Employee relations climate plays a full mediator in the positive relationship between union-management relations climate and job satisfaction.(6) Employee relations climate plays the full mediating role in the U relationship between union-management relations climate and affective commitment.Our empirical results provide important implications for understanding the role of the union, HRM and employee relations climate in current China. Theoretically, we enrich the literature of employee relations climate and provide constructive guidance in the development of employee relations climate. Meanwhile, the study extends the social information processing theory and social context theory into the discussion of organizational climate and HRM and provides the evidence to advocate the application of these two theories in China. Moreover, the study is the first to focus on union-management relations climate and gives new perspectives on the union research. In addition, according to the examination of the relationships among union-management relations climate, employee relations climate and employee attitudes, the study supports the examination of multiple climates simultaneously. Practically, our findings show the importance of employee relations climate and offer valuable suggestions on how to manage employee relations climate in the enterprises. Furthermore, the study contributes to examine the roles of HRM and the union in the management of employee relations climate and promote the transition of enterprise unions in China. Finally, our study further explores the between-group variance of job satisfaction and affective commitment and helpful suggestions are provided to improve employee attitudes.Finally, there are still some limitations in this study that should be considered, such as only from the research perspectives on employee relations, the samples limited in the unionized firms, the discussion focus on union-management relations climate on behalf of industrial relations perspective and cross-sectional study. Therefore, future research can pay more attention to extending the other perspectives, enlarging the samples into non-unionized firms, deepening the study of employee relations climate from industrial relations perspective and adopting the longitudinal study and case study.