The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Labor Relations in Flexible Employment Context: An Empirical Study of Knowledge-Intensive Service Industries
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of HRM practices in improving labor relations quality in flexible employment relationships, using the context of China’s knowledge-intensive service industry. This paper is based on social exchange theory that proposes that organizational investments can elicit positive reciprocal responses from employees. Specifically, this paper investigates whether HRM practices such as social insurance coverage, training opportunities, compensation fairness, and contract formalization can enhance labor relations quality and whether flexible employment characteristics can moderate such relationships. Data are drawn from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey 2018, with a final analytical sample of 1, 536 employees in education, scientific research, information technology, and professional consultation. The results showed that all HRM practice dimensions were significantly related to labor relations quality. Specifically, compensation fairness had the strongest relationship with labor relations quality (β = 0.29, p < 0.001), followed by social insurance coverage (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), contract formalization (β = 0.18, p < 0.001), and training opportunities (β = 0.16, p < 0.01). These relationships explained 38.6 percent of variance in labor relations quality. In terms of moderation analysis, this paper found that flexible employment characteristics can enhance HRM practice effectiveness. Specifically, standardized coefficients were between 0.09 and 0.12 units higher for flexible employees than regular employees. This paper also found that flexible employees represent a high-return target group for HRM investment. This study extends social exchange theory to flexible employment relationships and demonstrated that strategic HRM practice can be an effective mechanism for improving labor relations quality among nonstandard employees.
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