Motivational strivings, human resource management practices, and job performance: An advancement of the theory of purposeful work behavior

Abstract Understanding how employees respond to HR systems is a critical question in the strategic HR literature and the need for more nuanced theoretical frameworks explaining who responds differentially to HR systems persists. Drawing on a contingency perspective and the theory of purposeful work behavior, we present a theoretical framework that suggests that employee motivational goal strivings interact with commensurate HR bundles (communion‐enhancing HR bundles, status‐enhancing HR bundles, and achievement‐enhancing HR bundles) to predict employee job performance. Based on survey data collected from 362 employees in 84 service units, our findings reveal that the effects of communion and status strivings on job performance are more positive and stronger for employees in units with higher levels of communion‐enhancing HR bundles and status‐enhancing HR bundles, respectively. In contrast, the effect of achievement goal strivings on job performance is weaker in units with higher levels of achievement‐enhancing HR bundles. These findings have significant implications for both theoretical and practical perspectives, shedding light on the role of employee motivations in shaping the effectiveness of HR bundles on employee performance.