The Interplay Between HR Practices and Perceived Behavioural Integrity in Determining Positive Employee Outcomes

Managers’ integrity is increasingly considered a crucial topic in organizational studies, as it has been linked to companies’ profitability and success. Employees’ perceptions of the consistency between leaders’ deeds and their words seem, in fact, to influence their attitudes towards an organization, enhancing their supportive behaviour. This study addresses the issue by examining the role of behavioural integrity in the chain linking human resources (HR) practices to employee attitudes. An important novelty of the study is that it explicitly distinguishes between intended and experienced HR practices in conducting the analysis. The aim of the study is to analyse whether managers’ behavioural integrity moderates the link between intended HR practices (practices as designed by the organization) and experienced HR practices (practices as perceived by the employees). The study also tests whether experienced HR practices mediate the relationship between intended HR practices and positive employee outcomes, such as affective commitment and job satisfaction. The results of this study, conducted with more than 6,000 employees, show that managers’ perceived behavioural integrity plays two major roles: it promotes a positive relationship between intended and experienced HR practices, and boosts employees’ affective commitment and job satisfaction both directly and indirectly. The analysis also reveals an intervening role for experienced HR practices, which mediate the joint impact of intended practices and behavioural integrity on the two employee outcomes.