High-Performance Work Practices And Employee Resilience In New Zealand's Public Services: A Conditional Indirect Effect Model Of Leadership Styles

This study considers the relationship between high involvement work practices (HIWP) and employee resilience, as moderated by leadership style. It offers an empirical test of a structural model exploring these relationships in New Zealand’s core public sector.

The 2016 Workplace Dynamics Survey, undertaken by the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) and Victoria University of Wellington, gathered information on the psychological outcomes of workers' job experiences and the organisations for which they worked. All participants were PSA members and were asked questions regarding their jobs, workplaces, and personal lives. The original sample included 14125 participants. For the current study, the sample was subsequently narrowed downed to core public sector members both managerial and non-managerial employees were selected, and items with missing values were imputed using the Expectation-Maximisation logarithm –the imputation resulting in 7326 unique replies for this study.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the measurement model, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to explain the relationship between, on the one hand, the four organizational elements as comprising HIWP –power, information, knowledge, and rewards (PIRK) –and employee resilience, on the other. The hypothesized structural model was then tested, parameters were estimated, and moderators added to see if they could explain variation (heterogeneity) in the effect sizes.

According to the model, HIWP positively affects individual employee's self-reported resilience and that this relationship is moderated by and perceived through management style. The model investigates the relationship between a second-order latent variable encompassing the combined effect of the PIRK attributes on a first-order latent variable measuring employee resilience. The model also posits that this relationship is direct and indirect, through two first-order latent variables measuring constructive and laissez-faire leadership styles.

This study adds theoretical and practical knowledge by demonstrating that leadership style matters in the relationship between human resource management and the capacity of employees to positively cope, adapt and even thrive in dynamic environments. This research's key finding is that HIWP is positively related to employee resilience and that leadership style mediates that relationship. The results of this study further indicate that, while an individual’s level of education moderates the relationship between HIWP and employee resilience, the employee’s ethnicity and tenure on the job do not. Finally, this study offers proposals for future research, including data collection and recommendations for practitioners.