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Research methods in human resource management

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Research Methods in Human Resources Management

The objective of this paper is to highlight research methods, which are relevant to the understanding of personnel decision making. These methods have been briefly discussed and illustrated by specific studies published in journals/documents. It is suggested that personnel research at the organizational level will facilitate decision making in utilizing and developing human resources.

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Organizations have a function called human resource management that emphasizes organization and guiding principles. How people are managed within organizations is the main focus of HR. There are procedures within HR departments and units for numerous measures of responsibility in general, including hiring employees, providing them with training and growth opportunities, evaluating their performance, and rewarding them. HR is concerned with lab our relations, including collective bargaining and reconciling company policies with rules resulting from governmental law. Transactional tasks like payroll and benefits administration predominated the role at first, but because of globalization, organizational integration, technology advancement, and subsequent study, HR now links with strategic efforts. In the past, human resource management (HRM) stood alone as a discipline. In reality, payroll and other administrative difficulties are generally handled by human resource and operations managers. The two topics are investigated independently by various social scientists in academia, which frequently draw from distinct disciplinary backgrounds and publish in different publications. However, on a fundamental level, operations and human resources are strongly intertwined. A function is a setting that frequently clarifies or limits the consequences of human resource operations like compensation, training, staffing, and communication. Several studies have looked into the relationship between employee performance and an organization's bottom line. The important research on human resource management (HRM) challenges in the travel and hospitality sector is structurally reviewed in this article. Human resource management initiatives in the past have focused on three different business strategies: management fit strategies, labour functions with predictable manpower, specific strategic objectives or needs, environmental supply conditions, and human resource coordination mechanisms that align management strategy and structure overall effort. This article reviews the literature on each of these strategies and presents a taxonomy that compares them. an association between a company's business and human resource strategies. Discussions about the study and practical implications follow. Information technology has significantly changed human resources (HR) processes and practices in recent years. However, there aren't many studies that have looked at its efficacy and the majority of those that don't assess how much these new systems aid businesses in achieving their HR objectives of luring, inspiring, and keeping people. There are numerous restrictions connected with present systems for a reason: One-way communication systems are used, it's impersonal and passive, personal communication authorization isn't always granted, and it frequently creates an unnatural barrier between people and companies. As a result, the main goals of this article are to analyses the present effects of technology on HR procedures, take into account the literature that has been published on the subject, and examine the benefits and potential drawbacks of employing these systems. We also offer strategies for utilising technology in future HR operations and research.

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Research trends in human resource management. A text-mining-based literature review

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN : 0143-7720

Article publication date: 26 April 2022

Issue publication date: 14 March 2023

The purpose of the study was to detect trends in human resource management (HRM) research presented in journals during the 2000–2020 timeframe. The research question is: How are the interests of researchers changing in the field of HRM and which topics have gained popularity in recent years?

Design/methodology/approach

The approach adopted in this study was designed to overcome all the limitations specific to the systematic literature reviews and bibliometric studies presented in the Introduction. The full texts of papers were analyzed. The text-mining tools detected first clusters and then trends, moreover, which limited the impact of a researcher's bias. The approach applied is consistent with the general rules of systematic literature reviews.

The article makes a threefold contribution to academic knowledge. First, it uses modern methodology to gather and synthesize HRM research topics. The proposed approach was designed to allow early detection of nascent, non-obvious trends in research, which will help researchers address topics of high value for both theory and practice. Second, the results of our study highlight shifts in focus in HRM over the past 19 years. Third, the article suggests further directions of research.

Research limitations/implications

In this study, the approach designed to overcome the limitations of using systematic literature review was presented. The analysis was done on the basis of the full text of the articles and the categories were discovered directly from the articles rather than predetermined. The study's findings may, however, potentially be limited by the following issues. First, the eligibility criteria included only papers indexed in the Scopus and WoS database and excluded conference proceedings, book chapters, and non-English papers. Second, only full-text articles were included in the study, which could narrow down the research area. As a consequence, important information regarding the research presented in the excluded documents is potentially lost. Third, most of the papers in our database were published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and therefore such trends as “challenges for international HRM” can be considered significant (long-lasting). Another – the fourth – limitation of the study is the lack of estimation of the proportion between searches in HRM journals and articles published in other journals. Future research may overcome the above-presented limitations. Although the authors used valuable techniques such as TF-IDF and HDBSCAN, the fifth limitation is that, after trends were discovered, it was necessary to evaluate and interpret them. That could have induced researchers' bias even if – as in this study – researchers from different areas of experience were involved. Finally, this study covers the 2000–2020 timeframe. Since HRM is a rapidly developing field, in a few years from now academics will probably begin to move into exciting new research areas. As a consequence, it might be worthwhile conducting similar analyses to those presented in this study and compare their results.

Originality/value

The present study provides an analysis of HRM journals with the aim of establishing trends in HRM research. It makes contributions to the field by providing a more comprehensive and objective review than analyses resulting from systematic literature reviews. It fills the gap in literature studies on HRM with a novel research approach – a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset. As a consequence, this study can be considered as providing an adequate reflection of all the articles published in journals strictly devoted to HRM issues and which may serve as an important source of reference for both researchers and practitioners. This study can help them identify the core journals focused on HRM research as well as topics which are of particular interest and importance.

• Human resource management
• Text-mining

Piwowar-Sulej, K. , Wawak, S. , Tyrańska, M. , Zakrzewska, M. , Jarosz, S. and Sołtysik, M. (2023), "Research trends in human resource management. A text-mining-based literature review", International Journal of Manpower , Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 176-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2021-0183

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Katarzyna Piwowar-Sulej, Sławomir Wawak, Małgorzata Tyrańska, Małgorzata Zakrzewska, Szymon Jarosz and Mariusz Sołtysik

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The human resource (HR) function has evolved over the years from serving a purely administrative role into one that is more strategic in character. Today it is believed that the mission of human resource management (HRM) is to support the organization in achieving its objectives by developing and implementing HR strategies that are integrated with a company's business strategy, promote staff development, foster a positive employment relationship, promote an ethical approach to people management, and care about the environment (social and natural) ( Ehnert, 2009 ; Braga et al. , 2021 ).

In practice, HRM means providing continuous solutions to a wide array of problems occurring in employee-employer, line worker-manager, and employee-employee relations and also in contacts with, e.g. trade unions. Human behaviors, feelings and attitudes are determined both by the personal characteristics of individuals and by the impact of the environment. The shape of HRM is significantly influenced by such factors as, e.g. the demographic and technological transformations ( Greiling, 2011 ; Silva and Lima, 2018 ), and globalization ( Gerhart and Fang, 2005 ).

HRM has evolved as a professional and academic discipline in parallel with both planned shifts in global considerations and unplanned phenomena such as, e.g. epidemics. For researchers it is crucial to identify, define, explain, and help practitioners understand the key factors which have an impact on HRM. Another of the researchers' roles is to formulate practical guidelines on how to manage people in different circumstances and outline areas of future research. HRM thrives on the contributions made in other fields that it assimilates and applies in practice. It unscrupulously builds on theoretical developments made earlier in related disciplines ( Boxall et al. , 2009 ). Finally, the researcher endeavors to provide an overview, comparisons, analyses and syntheses of previously published findings ( Paul and Criado, 2020 ).

The theme of trends in HRM has been addressed in numerous publications (e.g. Cooper et al. , 2020 ; Madera et al. , 2017 ). Their authors have employed various approaches to identify such phenomena, including systematic literature reviews. Articles offering a traditional overview provide a quantity-oriented (i.e. meta-analytical, systematic) approach together with descriptive or qualitative elements. Jointly, they develop a theoretical background, highlight irregularities in existing findings, integrate the findings of a wide variety of publications and in general provide other researchers with an up-to-date understanding of the discipline, frequently prepared by leading specialists ( Palmatier et al. , 2018 ). In most cases, the documents selected for analysis were based on titles, keywords and abstracts only. Unfortunately, they contain only around 8% of all research findings ( Blake, 2010 ). In order to gain a deeper insight into such a body of knowledge authors have often turned to the by-hand review method (e.g. Cooper et al. , 2020 ).

Conventional systematic by-hand literature reviews are sometimes characterized by errors in article selection, possible simplifications and potentially incomplete and not universal results (subjective, impressionistic descriptions), In response to these shortcomings, in recent years a number of new alternatives have emerged. One new approach that has attracted increasing attention is bibliometric studies. This method applies dedicated IT tools to gauge trends in articles. They examine academic material from both an objective and qualitative perspective for the purposes of identifying, organizing, and analyzing information in a specific research field ( Capobianco-Uriarte et al. , 2019 ). As far as trends in HRM are concerned, Markoulli et al. (2017) presented a summary of previously published traditional and narrative reviews and on its basis created a science map and defined clusters based on keyword co-occurrence analysis and the VOSviewer software tool.

Bibliometric analyses can be treated as a platform for writing an entire article or can be used only as preparation for the groundwork for further in-depth content analysis and qualitative descriptions. In turn, a text mining toolset can help identify research trends and select papers which are in line with a particular trend. Moreover, a full-text analysis of publications using a text mining toolset enables researchers to obtain higher-quality results than when using only keywords, such as in the case of VOSviewer analyses ( Kobayashi et al. , 2018 ). As a consequence we decided that it was worth adopting a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset in order to identify trends in HRM research. We believe that big data and analytics help not only companies function but also researchers in a highly data-driven world ( Kobayashi et al. , 2018 ).

The purpose of the study was to detect trends in HRM research presented in journals during the 2000–2020 timeframe. The following research question was asked: how are the interests of researchers changing in the field of HRM and which topics have gained in popularity in recent years?

The paper is organized as follows. In the second section we describe the HRM research trends identified in previous studies. Here the focus is on the context in which authors were operating when analyzing HRM issues. The third section is devoted to the research method employed for the purpose of this study. Then we present the results and discussion. The article ends with conclusions, including limitations and areas of future research.

The article makes a threefold contribution to academic knowledge. First, it uses modern methodology to gather and synthesize HRM research topics. The proposed approach was designed to allow early detection of nascent, non-obvious trends in research, which will help researchers address topics of high value for both theory and practice. Second, the results of our study highlight shifts in focus in HRM over the past 20 years. Third, the article suggests further directions of research.

2. Trends in the HRM research identified in previous studies

In their search for HRM research trends authors of this study firstly used the Scopus database and a search strategy based on such terms as: trends in human resource management/HRM, trends in research on human resource management/HRM, human resource management/HRM trends, intellectual structure of human resource management/HRM. The searching process covered titles, abstracts and keywords and was limited to articles written in English. The search produced 37 documents. Then the authors also searched for additional articles in Google Scholar.

Most of the articles were devoted to the trends identified in HR practices in companies (e.g. Dubravska and Solankova, 2015 ). One of such trends is HRM digitalization ( Ashbaugh and Miranda, 2002 ). Table 1 presents a list of HRM trends identified in the research (related to academic work) conducted by different authors.

It can be concluded from the above that researchers employed different approaches to defining and identifying these trends. Research trends may be associated with research topics (e.g. Özlen, 2014 ), research methods (e.g. Pietersen, 2018 ) and the general characteristics of the academic domain (e.g. Sanders and De Cieri, 2020 ). Although a number of authors have provided traditional literature reviews of trends in HRM, Chae et al. (2020) , for example, focused only on the local (Korean) research trends and used only keyword analyses. Others focused on a specific sector ( Cooper et al. , 2020 ), industry ( Madera et al. , 2017 ) or region ( Wood and Bischoff, 2020 ). There are also articles that outline the evolution of research in particular journals (e.g. Pietersen, 2018 ). Others address specific problems, such as international HRM (e.g. Sanders and De Cieri, 2020 ) or green HRM ( Yong et al. , 2020 ). The most visible trends identified in previous studies and associated with research topics were strategic HRM, HR performance and employment/industrial relations. The first topic was addressed in eight works while the remaining was the subject of five publications.

3. Material and methods

The approach adopted in this study was designed to overcome all the limitations specific to the systematic literature reviews and bibliometric studies as presented in the Introduction. The full texts of papers were analyzed. The approach applied is consistent with the general rules of systematic literature reviews ( Tranfield et al. , 2003 ) and consists of several steps, which are presented in Figure 1 .

3.1 Selection of journals

Thousands of articles covering HRM can be found on both Scopus and the Web of Science. For the sake of the present analysis, it was necessary to define inclusion criteria in the meta-analysis.

The main topic of the journal was related to HRM,

The journals were indexed in Scopus and WoS,

The journals have a high SNIP index value (the limit value is set at 1 - status for 2020; full values are presented in Table 2 ),

Full versions of the article were available,

The articles were published in the years 2000–2020.

A total of 8 journals met the above criteria ( Table 2 ). The full texts of the papers were downloaded from academic databases. No duplicates were found. Only research papers were included, while editorials, calls for papers, errata and book reviews were excluded.

All the metadata were removed from the papers. The titles and abstracts often contain catchwords designed to increase readership. As a consequence, only the texts of papers minus their titles, keywords, abstracts and references were analyzed in this study. Additional bibliographic information that could be useful in the analytical process was downloaded from the Crossref database. Each paper was converted into a text file and then into a bag-of-words model for the needs of automatic analysis using computer algorithms. The algorithms were created using Python libraries, such as grobid, nltk, scikit-learn, hdbscan, and scipy ( Pedregosa et al. , 2011 ).

3.2 Search for the most important terms

w i j – result for term i in document j ,

t f i j – number of occurrences of i in j ,

d f i – number of documents containing i ,

N – number of documents in the corpus (set of documents).

The TF-IDF method is not a mathematical model. It requires extensive computation, cannot be used to discover synonyms and ignores multiple meanings of words ( Zhang et al. , 2011 ). However, in the case of research papers, these problems have a minimal impact due to the more precise language used by researchers.

3.3 Identification of thematic groups (clusters)

The TF-IDF model presents each paper as a multidimensional vector. The number of dimensions is equal to the number of keywords used in the analysis. In the next step, all the vectors were compared to each other, which led to the discovery of clusters.

As mentioned in section 3.2 , the TF-IDF model does not analyse synonyms and ignores multiple meanings of words and phrases. In scholarly texts, it is rarely a problem. Even in HRM, where the number of synonyms can be perceived as higher than in other areas of management, the impact on the results should be negligible.

There are two main approaches to clustering: partitioning and hierarchical clustering. The former can be applied when all the corpus elements must be included in one of the groups. This induces data noise, as not even similar elements have to be included. The latter allows some elements to remain outside the clusters. The clusters become much more homogenous. This constitutes a better approach when it comes to identifying trends. Multiple hierarchical clustering methods are available, e.g. meanshift, DBSCAN, Optics and HDBSCAN (Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) ( McInnes et al. , 2017 ). HDBSCAN is characterized by the least number of limitations. It takes each paper (vector) and checks at what distance it can find similar publications. Then it compares the results, and the densest areas are detected as clusters. Unlike some other methods, the clusters lack permanent density or a fixed number of elements. The only parameter that the researcher needs to establish is the minimum cluster size. The best value can be determined through a series of experiments.

In the present study, the authors carried out a set of experiments using different minimum cluster sizes. The highest value detected was 20. Lower values lead to a much higher number of clusters. Moreover, general phrases not directly related to HRM played a significant role in the discovery of these clusters. With the minimum cluster size set to values greater than 20, the number of clusters was significantly lower. That led to general results based on the most popular phrases only.

The entire sample was divided into groups of papers published in 5-year overlapping periods starting with 2000–2004 and ending with 2016–2020. Each paper was assigned to all the groups into which it fitted. Cluster analysis was performed for every group separately, and the results were used to identify trends.

Cluster analysis was performed on each group separately, and the results were used to discover trends. Approximately 30 clusters on average were identified for each five-year period. However, for a trend to be identified at least two similar clusters had to be discovered in successive periods Therefore, many unrelated clusters were excluded by the algorithm. Such behaviour is expected, as it removes noise from data. Usually, only one-third of clusters meet the conditions to form trends.

The number of papers published in each year is presented in Figure 2 . A slight decrease in the number of articles can be observed compared to 2018–19, which may have been a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

3.4 Identification of trends

Long-lasting trends that existed and evolved during the studied period,

Declining trends which came to an end during the studied period,

Emerging trends which began during the studied period,

Ephemeris trends that began and ended during the studied period.

3.5 Interpretation of trends

The results delivered by the algorithm must be checked through further studies. The algorithm can detect mergers or splits in trends. We decided, however, that the final decision should be left to researchers. At this stage, trends should also be named, interpreted and described. The interpretation phase should help highlight changes within trends and try to predict their future evolution.

4. Results and discussion

The analyses, performed by researchers using automatic algorithms and further verification, led to the discovery of 42 trends presented in Table 3 . These trends are ordered according to the year of their first occurrence and their duration. It is worth emphasizing that the year in which a trend was observed does not indicate that the idea behind it emerged at the same time. Rather, it shows when a subject began to increase in popularity among researchers. Furthermore, the number of identified trends is much higher than the results from previous studies presented in Section 2.1 Table 4 .

The use of tracking revealed the evolution of clusters, and made it possible to identify trends. The analysis led to the discovery of the types of trends presented in Section 3.4. Of the 42 trends, 4 were long-lasting, 5 declining, 17 emerging and 16 ephemeris in character. One possible fact to note is that “strategic HRM”, which was a prevailing trend in previous studies, is not directly presented in the results obtained using text-mining analyses. However, it is included in the “architecture and changing role of HRM” trend.

At this point it is worth emphasizing that sociologists of science have examined the principles governing the selection of topics analysed by researchers, and noticed that it may result from a trade-off between conservative production and risky innovation ( Bourdieu, 1975 ). The main problem when choosing research topics is deciding whether to continue topics fixed in the literature or take the risk of exploring new, hitherto unknown themes. Trend a analysis offers an indirect solution based on strategic ambidexterity. This is not only because it allows us to observe disappearing themes that continue to be exploited, but also to identify those topics, in which there is a growing interest (exploration).

Long-lasting trends are not homogenous and change over time. The evolution of trends can be tracked using keywords of considerable importance in subsequent years. The importance of keywords was evaluated using the TF-IDF algorithm and averaged for each cluster. The TF-IDF formula was presented in the Methodology section. It should be noted that the TF-IDF score has to be calculated for each phrase in each paper. In this study, over 150,000 phrases were identified in over 6 thousand papers. That resulted in a significant number of calculations made by the algorithm, which cannot be presented in the paper. A comparison of cluster keywords reveals new topics within trends. The evolution of trends may lead to the disappearance of earlier topics or to their parallel development. Declining and ephemeris trends are associated with issues that are of less interest to researchers, have been resolved or were eclipsed by changes in a researcher's approach to the object of their study. The disappearance of certain trends is a normal phenomenon in science. Such a disappearance can be predicted to a certain degree when the average number of papers decreases.

Since we identified many trends, only a few examples will be described below. One example of a long-lasting trend is “Diversity Management”, which covered the entire 2000–2020 timeframe. The articles that discussed this trend focused on effective diversity management, its impact on organizational performance (e.g. Choi et al. , 2017 ), team performance ( Roberge and van Dick, 2010 ), knowledge sharing ( Shen et al. , 2014 ), innovation ( Peretz et al. , 2015 ), and the various factors which impact upon its effectiveness. Some papers discussed only one form of diversity in the workplace, e.g. age diversity ( Li et al. , 2011 ), gender diversity (e.g. Gould et al. , 2018 ) or ethnic diversity (e.g. Singh, 2007 ).

One sub-trend that can be observed within the above-discussed trend is age management', which falls within the 2005–2018 time range. The papers assigned to this sub-trend focus on HR practices towards older employees (e.g. Kooij et al. , 2014 ).

One example of a declining trend is “new and traditional career models”. This trend, which was observed in the years 2000–2019, highlights the fact that the weakening of organizational boundaries has increased career freedom and independence from previously constraining factors. The papers which examined this issue provide conceptual knowledge of different career dimensions. For example, a shift has taken place from objective to subjective careers. Individuals have to make sense of their careers, because they can no longer depend on their employers ( Walton and Mallon, 2004 ). Individual cultural, social and economic capital builds a field of opportunities for pursuing a career ( Iellatchitch et al. , 2003 ). Simultaneously, two major kinds of boundaries to the “boundaryless career” have been identified: the competence-based boundary (industry boundary) and the relation-based boundary (social capital boundary) ( Baghdadli et al. , 2003 ).

In the last two decades, increasing environmental awareness has pushed researchers towards addressing the issue of HRM as a strategic tool for making companies sustainability-driven organizations (e.g. Podgorodnichenko et al. , 2020 ). One of the emerging trends identified in our study is “Green and sustainable HRM”. This trend focuses on the environmental responsibility of companies (e.g. DuBois and Dubois, 2012 ) or/and achieving simultaneously social and economic goals (if the triple bottom line concept is discussed) (e.g. Ren and Jackson, 2020 ). The results, in the form of behavioral changes, have also been examined (e.g. Dumont et al. , 2017 ) and the contribution of HRM to company sustainability has been discussed in the context of different countries (e.g. Alcaraz et al. , 2019 ).

Finally, one example of an ephemeris trend is “HR certification”. The discussion on this trend was initiated by Lengnick-Hall and Aguinis (2012) . They applied a multi-level theory-based approach to investigating HR certification. They tried to assess the value of HR certification for individual HR specialists, their organizations as well as for the HR profession as a whole. The main topic addressed in later articles devoted to this trend was the value of HR certification (e.g. Aguinis and Lengnick-Hall, 2012 ). The value of HR certification has been linked with shareholder value ( Paxton, 2012 ). The link between organizational values and HR certification is another issue that has been addressed. Organizational values are treated as a key antecedent to the use and pursuit of HR certification ( Garza and Morgeson, 2012 ).

Table 3 presents only those periods during which specific trends were active, but provides no information on their dynamics. This can be observed by looking at the average number of papers per year (ANPY) in consecutive periods. Table 4 presents all the trends active during the last year of the study. They were divided into three groups according to whether the ANPY was decreasing, increasing or stable in recent years. To depict the relative strength of these trends, table shows the average number of papers published in the final 5-year period.

It can be concluded that trends with an increasing dynamic coincide with the trends defined in the literature. For example, “flexible employment from the perspective of HRM” corresponds with “employment relations” distinguished by Markoulli et al. (2017) and “the HRM process, the changing nature of HRM, and precarious employment relations” in the typology developed by Cooper et al. (2020) . “Diversity Management” is related to “organizational culture” ( Özlen, 2014 ). “Employee participation” may be associated with “employment relations” ( Cooke et al. , 2019 ) and “organizational commitment” ( García-Lillo et al. , 2017 ). The latter occurs both in the presented typology and in previous ones. “leader–member exchange” should be included in “behavioral issues” ( Özlen, 2014 ). Finally, a trend characterized by an increasing dynamic is “green and sustainable HRM”. Green HRM was an independent subject of analysis in a study by Yong et al. (2020) .

5. Conclusions

5.1 contributions and implications.

The present study provides an analysis of HRM journals with the aim of identifying trends in HRM research. It makes contributions to the field by providing a more comprehensive and objective review than analyses resulting from conventional systematic literature reviews as well as by identifying 42 different trends. It fills an existing gap in literature studies on HRM with a novel research approach – a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset. As a consequence, this study can be considered as providing an adequate reflection of all the articles published in journals strictly devoted to HRM issues and which may serve as an important source of reference for both researchers and practitioners. It can also help them identify the core journals focused on HRM research as well as those topics which are of particular interest and importance.

As the study covers a period of over 20 years it should come as no surprise that some trends emerged and declined over this time. However, our study creates an opportunity for reviving research topics which combine old trends with new ones, and at the same time take into account the interdisciplinary nature of HRM as a field of research. Some researchers have observed that success can often be achieved by adopting a tool from another research area or through a new way of analyzing old problems that brings new insights and solutions ( Adali et al. , 2018 ).

Finally, we observed the emergence of a number of trends during the studied period that are still active. In particular, green and sustainable HRM is not only an emerging trend but also developing rapidly. It is worth mentioning here that while many articles have focused on green HRM issues, they have not been published in journals that specialize in HRM but in journals devoted to environmental issues. One possible future challenge for researchers may be to estimate the proportions between HRM articles published in HRM journals and those featured in other journals.

Practitioners interested in the evolution of the field can find in this paper areas of HRM that require improving in their own businesses or which can be treated as a platform for introducing innovations in HRM (emerging trends). The information contained in this paper can also be utilized as a source for evaluating the performance of sub-fields in a HRM research domain and for adjusting research policies with regard to funding allocations and comparing research input and output ( Gu, 2004 ). The editors of journals may take into account the results presented in this paper when making decisions regarding the direction, scope, and themes of their journals.

5.2 Limitations

In this study, the approach designed to overcome the limitations of using systematic literature review was presented. The analysis was done on the basis of the full text of the articles and the categories were discovered directly from the articles rather than predetermined. The study's findings may, however, potentially be limited by the following issues.

First, our eligibility criteria included only papers indexed in the Scopus and WoS database and excluded conference proceedings, book chapters, and non-English papers. Second, only full-text articles were included in the study, which could narrow down the research area. As a consequence, important information regarding the research presented in the excluded documents is potentially lost. Third, most of the papers in our database were published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and therefore such trends as “challenges for international HRM” can be considered significant (long-lasting). Another – the fourth – limitation of the study is the lack of estimation of the proportion between searches in HRM journals and articles published in other journals. Future research may overcome the above-presented limitations. Although we used valuable techniques such as TF-IDF and HDBSCAN, the fifth limitation is that, after trends were discovered, it was necessary to evaluate and interpret them. That could have induced researchers' bias even if – as in this study – researchers from different areas of experience were involved. Finally, this study covers the 2000–2020 timeframe. Since HRM is a rapidly developing field, in a few years from now academics will probably begin to move into exciting new research areas. As a consequence, it might be worthwhile conducting similar analyses to those presented in this study and compare their results.

Workflow of the methodology used in this study

Number of papers in the years 2000–2020

Trends in HRM research identified in previous studies

HRM-related journals included in this study

Trends in HRM research in the years 2000–2020

Activity of long-lasting and emerging trends in recent years

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• Published: 08 September 2017

Methodological choices of HR research conducted in Asia

• Karin Sanders 1 ,
• Julie A. Cogin 2 &
• Cai-Hui Veronica Lin 3  

Frontiers of Business Research in China volume  11 , Article number:  11 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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A twenty-year study of the Human Resource (HR) practices–outcome relationship has found that more rigorous methodologies have been adopted over time. However, several problematic features such as cross-sectional, single-informant, and single-level designs continue to be adopted (Bainbridge et al., Human Resource Management, 2016). Responding to calls for increased contextualization of research by investigating the relationship between the location of data collection and the methodological choices of researchers, this study answers the question “How unique are the methodological choices of HR research conducted in Asia?” Applying content analysis to 241 published articles, we compare internal, external, construct and statistical conclusion validity of studies collected in North America ( n= 66), Europe ( n= 95) and Asia ( n= 80, including 57 studies from China). Results show that despite similarities in cross-sectional, single-informant and single-level designs across regions, research conducted in Asia is mainly undertaken via field studies, using subjective outcome measures at the organizational level, following a post-predictive design. In addition, studies from Asia are more recent, and show a shorter time gap between data collection and publication. Theoretical and practical implications embedded in the dynamic context of Asia in general, and China more specifically are discussed.

Introduction

Human Resource (HR) scholars and practitioners emphasize the importance of a robust methodology to study the relationship between HR practices and employee and organizational outcomes (Bainbridge, Sanders, Cogin & Lin, 2016 ; Combs, Liu, Hall & Ketchen, 2006 ; Guest, 2011 ; Hayton, Piperopoulous, & Welbourne, 2011 ; Paauwe, 2009 ; Wall & Wood, 2005 ; Welbourne, 2011 ; Wright & Gardner, 2003 ). Strong methodologies build confidence in research findings by providing evidence that HR practitioners can draw on to inform decision making (see Bainbridge, et al. 2016 ; Rynes & Bartunek, 2017 ). In addition, sound methodologies contribute to building a rigorous body of knowledge and help to solve challenging organizational problems.

Despite the acknowledged importance of strong research methodologies, HR scholars have questioned if the methodologies employed in the HR field provide a sufficient basis for drawing valid conclusions (Wright & Ulrich, 2017 ). For instance, the prevalence of common method bias where a single source of data measures both HR practices and outcomes, such as firm performance, has been criticized (Wright, Gardner, Moynihan & Allen, 2005 ). This kind of research design leads to an overestimation of the relationship between HR practices and outcomes (Gerhart, Wright & McMahan, 2000 ; Huselid & Becker, 2000 , Sanders, & Frenkel, 2011 ). In addition, the pervasiveness of cross-sectional research designs, where HR practices and performance are measured at the same time has been questioned. Such an approach is a more accurate predictor of past performance instead of future performance and prevents valid causal conclusions (Huselid & Becker, 2000 ; Wright et al., 2005 ; Wall & Wood, 2005 ). Single-level research designs are also problematic as they do not account for variance apportioned at different levels, thwarting the supposition that HR practices enhance employee and/or organizational outcomes (see Guest, 2011 ; Paauwe, 2009 ).

Bainbridge et al. ( 2016 ) content analysis of twenty years of studies investigating the HR practices – outcome relationship found significant improvements across many validity-related methodological choices over time. For instance, multi-level research designs are increasing, and there has been a decrease in post-predictive research designs, in which performance is measured prior to HR practices being measured. There has also been a reduction in direct effect testing. The growing trend of mediator and moderator research to explain the relationship between HR practices and outcomes and uncover factors that influence this association, as well as less usage of same source data to measure the HR and outcome variables are also positive changes. Notwithstanding this, problematic designs which include cross-sectional, single source and single level features are common.

Several scholars have called for increased attention to the context in which research is carried out (Barney & Zhang, 2009 ; Li, Leung, Chen & Luo, 2012 ; Tsui, 2006 , 2013 ; Sheldon & Sanders, 2016 ). For instance, John (2006) calls for stronger engagement with the context of the data collection. In terms of geographic context, scholars have emphasized the uniqueness of Asia’s social, cultural, historical, and political mosaic as well as economic and market reforms, in order to highlight the importance of context (Tsui, Wang & Xin, 2006 ). Related to China specifically, Tsui ( 2006 , 2013 ) emphasizes the importance of ‘inside out’ approaches that are sensitive to knowledge about the environment in contrast to ‘outside in’ research in which well-known topics examine ‘how they are manifested’ in the Chinese context (Tsui, 2006 : 3; see also Sheldon & Sanders, 2016 ). Although these calls emphasize the importance of context in relation to theoretical questions, the research setting may also influence the suitability of different methodological treatments. In qualitative research, it is well established that context can shape methodology (Townsend, Loudoun & Lewin, 2016 ). Collaboration research between Chinese and UK scholars indeed reveal different ontological and epistemological assumptions and research approaches between the two teams (Easterby-Smith & Malina, 1999 ). However, in quantitative research less attention has been given to this issue.

As the Asian and Chinese economy in particular, has gained momentum in the past few decades, increased research has been conducted in this setting (Bainbridge et al., 2016 ). This is not surprising given claims that management research conducted in Asia could potentially contribute to global management knowledge (Meyer, 2006 ). An important question then is: To what extent does research with an Asian or Chinese data sample utilize different research designs compared to other geographic settings? Understanding the influence of research settings on methodological choices would raise researchers’ awareness of potential opportunities and constraints of conducting research in different geographical settings. By focusing the spotlight on Asia, such an investigation would enable scholars doing work in this region to strengthen the rigor of their research. As such, this study examines how methodological choices differ across regions. We do this by undertaking a content analysis of 241 studies between 1995 and 2014 using samples from Asia, Europe and North America. Footnote 1 We begin by presenting our research methodology before examining the internal, external, construct and statistical conclusion validity of studies using data collected from these regions. We then discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Sample and procedure

This research utilizes the dataset developed by Bainbridge, et al. ( 2016 ) who examine the methodological choices of researchers studying the HR practices – outcome relationship in six leading management and six leading HRM journals between 1995 and 2014: the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Human Relations (HR), Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP), Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), Journal of Management Studies (JMS), and the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ), British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR), Human Resource Management (HRM), Human Resource Management Journal (HRMJ), Industrial & Labor Relations Review (ILLR), International Journal of Human Resource Management (IJHRM), and Personnel Psychology (PP). Footnote 2 These journals were selected because their studies are widely cited, making articles published in these outlets disproportionately influential on the field. In this follow-up study, we compare the methodological choices of studies undertaken in North America ( n =  66), Europe ( n =  95) and Asia ( n =  80, including 57 from China) Footnote 3 across four aspects of validity: internal, external, construct and statistical conclusion validity. The 57 studies from China came from Chinese mainland (39 studies), Hong Kong (2 studies) and Taiwan (16 studies). Although Taiwan’s social and economic systems differ from Chinese mainland, we did not find significant differences between the validity elements of studies conducted in Taiwan and Chinese mainland. Because of this and the small number of studies in Hong Kong, we collapsed the studies together in our analysis.

Two criteria were used for inclusion in the sample: i) each study must test the effect of multiple HR practices on an outcome, and ii) the study must contain empirical quantitative research. Multiple HR practices are defined as the presence of two or more substantively different HR practices. Outcomes are defined as measures of economic performance (e.g., profitability, return on assets, return on equity), operational performance that focuses on outputs (e.g., productivity, production costs, quality, sales), and non-economic attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, organizational citizenship behaviours) (see Bainbridge et al. 2016 ).

We undertook a content analysis of all studies using a hierarchical system of codes based on Aguinis, Pierce, Bosco, and Muslin’s ( 2009 ) taxonomy of methodological choices across four aspects of validity (internal, external, construct, statistical conclusion). Data was coded into 61 dichotomous variables using dummy coding (0 = methodological choice not made in the study; 1 = methodological choice made in the study) and four continuous variables. Methodological choices relevant to each aspect of validity are outlined in the following material.

Region and journal outlets

We found significant differences in publication patterns by journal outlet and region ( χ2 (22) = 141.40, p  < .01). As displayed in Table 1 , studies that use data collected in North America were more often published in AMJ, HRM and ILLR. European studies were often published in IJHRM and HRMJ and studies employing samples from Asia and Europe were most often published in IJHRM. Although studies conducted in China were more likely to be published in AMJ and less in IJHRM than studies conducted in Asia, these differences were not significant ( χ2 (11) = 8.21, n.s.). Over the twenty year timeframe, the results show that HR studies were most likely to be conducted in Europe (38%), and Asia (32%), while only a quarter of the studies were undertaken in North America (26%). The results also show that studies conducted using European research samples remained stable over the 20-year timeframe, in comparison to the number of Asian studies which dramatically increased, especially studies conducted in China. Research undertaken in North America saw a significant decrease over time.

In the following section, we report differences across regions. Table 2 summarizes the significant results across four aspects of validity for the three regions.

Internal validity

Internal validity concerns issues of causality and the accuracy of conclusions drawn regarding whether statistical relationships found between variables imply cause (Cook & Campbell, 1976 ). A high degree of internal validity provides convincing evidence of causality; likewise if a study has low internal validity, then little or no evidence of causality is provided. Three conditions must be satisfied to claim that a relationship between X (the presumed cause, in this case, HR practices) and Y (the presumed outcome), is causal: i) presence of a relationship between HR and an outcome; ii) time precedence (i.e., first HR practices, followed by an outcome); and iii) is non-spuriousness (e.g., excellent line managers effective in implementing HR practices drive superior outcomes, or a positive economic situation which explains both HR practices and the outcome) (Cook & Campbell, 1976 ).

In this study, we assessed internal validity through an examination of the following methodological choices: type of data (field vs archival data), data structure (cross-sectional, longitudinal), predictive design (post-predictive, retrospective, contemporaneous, predictive; Wright et al., 2005 ), and the form of the HR practices–outcome relationship (direct, mediation, moderation, moderated mediation).

We found that regions differed in how the research was conducted against the inferences made. Field studies (as opposed to archival research) were more prevalent in Asia (96%; China: 94%) and Europe (82%) than in North America (75%) ( χ2 (2) = 28.33, p <  .001). In addition, we found significant differences in the predictive design of studies ( χ2 (4) = 19.21, p <  .001). In Asia, a post-predictive design, in which the performance measurement took place before the HR practices were measured was most common (55%; the same for China alone). The most notable consequence of this is that any inference of causality for these research designs is not valid (Wright et al., 2005 ). In Europe, most studies (45%) employed a contemporaneous predictive design by measuring HR practices and the outcome at the same time. North America most often utilized predictive design (32%) which assess if HR practices at time 0 are related to an outcome measure at a subsequent time. This research design allows for stronger conclusions about the causal relationship between variables.

No significant differences in research design by region were found pertaining to cross sectional studies ( χ2 (2) = 1.08, n.s.), which was by far the most prevalent design (93%). Only modest numbers of longitudinal studies (7%) were conducted during the twenty-year time span. The extent of cross sectional studies was alarming given extensive criticism of this approach and the inability to provide evidence of a causal relationship between HR practices and an outcome (Wright et al., 2005 ).

The most common choice for examining the HR practices – outcome relationship was a mediation model (36%). This was followed by moderation (31%), direct effect (26%), and moderated mediation (7%) models. We found no significant differences across regions for such choices ( χ2 (6) = .31, n.s.).

External validity

External validity concerns the extent to which study findings can be generalized across time, location, setting, and entities (Cook & Campbell, 1976 ). External validity was assessed through an examination of the level of analysis of the dependent variable (individual, team / workplace / business unit, or firm level), outcome measures (subjective and/or objective), level of measurement (single versus multi-level), industries (single versus multiple industries), response rates, year of data collection compared with the year of publication and evidence of common method bias.

We found differences pertaining to the level of measurement across regions ( χ2 (4) = 24.03; p <  .001). Most studies were conducted at the firm level (Asia 55% (China: 46%), Europe 45% and North America 40%); however, research conceptualized in Europe and North America also showed higher levels of research undertaken at the employee level (40% and 21% respectively). Over the twenty-year period, there has been minimal investigation of how HR practices affect team outcomes or meso-level research in Europe (15%) and Asia (10%; China: 19%), in comparison to studies conducted in North America (39%).

Significant differences were identified regarding whether studies undertook investigations in single or multiple industries ( χ2 (2) = 4.27; p <  .05). Asia (52% (China: 38%)) and Europe (59%) were more likely to include multi-industry samples, while the North America largely focused on single industry investigations (67%). Response rates differed across regions ( F (2194) = 4.13, p  < .05), with studies undertaken in Asia securing higher response rates (51%) compared to those in Europe (38%) and North America (45%). We also found significant differences pertaining to the year of data collection ( F (2144) = 13.78, p <  .01) and publication year ( F (2238) = 15.33, p <  .001). During the period of our review, data collected in Asia was on average gathered in 2004 and the research was published in 2009. European data was collected on average in 2001 and published in 2006. Consistent with the reduction of studies over time coming out of North America, data was gathered on average in 1999 and published in 2005. These findings illustrate a shorter time lag between data collection and publication year for Asia (4.52 years; China: 4.68 years) in comparison to Europe (5.00 years) and North America (5.75 years) ( F (2, 132) =2.57, p <  .10).

We found no geographic differences in relation to the usage of same source data for the independent and dependent variables ( χ2 (2) =3.01, n.s.). On average 62% of the studies in our sample used same source data for the independent and dependent variables. In addition, there were no regional differences in the informants for the HR measure (78% used a single informant; F (2238) = 1.44, n.s.), the informants for outcome measure (67% used a single informant; F (2230) = .60, n.s.), or the levels in the model being tested (84% of research designs contain only one level). There were also no differences between the regions in the type of informants: 32% asked HR managers, 32% asked managers, and 36% asked employees to collect information about the HR practices and/or the outcomes.

Construct validity

Construct validity is the degree to which a questionnaire or scale measures what it claims to be measuring. It concerns the fit between the measure and the underlying constructs they are designed to measure (Cook & Campbell, 1976 ). Construct validity was assessed through an evaluation of the number of informants for the HR measure as well as the number of informants for the outcome measure and the number of controls in place.

We found differences across regions pertaining to whether scholars used objective (e.g., productivity, profit, or return on assets, from externally recorded and audited accounts) or subjective (e.g., asking respondents their perceptions of company performance) outcome measures ( χ2 (4) = 30.21, p <  .001). Studies conducted in Asia (79%) and Europe (71%) were much more likely to contain subjective outcome measures than scholars who used data from North America (44%). Very few studies in Asia (14%; China: 18%) and Europe (17%) drew on objective outcome measures compared with those in North America (41%). There were also differences in the number of variables used in research models ( F (2238) = 4.74, p <  .01). Studies utilizing European (6.72) and North American (6.26) samples employed more variables than Asian ones (4.60). There were no differences in the number of controls in the models (mea n =  4.39; F (2232) = .98, n.s.) used in the study.

Statistical conclusion validity

Statistical conclusion validity concerns the ability to make inferences about relationships between variables (e.g., HR practices and outcomes) based on statistical evidence in relation to co-variation and prediction (Cook & Campbell, 1976 ; Scandura & Williams, 2000 ). Statistical conclusion validity was assessed through an examination of sample size and data analysis technique.

We found significant regional differences pertaining to sample size ( F (2238) = 3.68; p <  .05). Asian studies were more likely to employ smaller samples ( n =  259), compared with those in North America ( n =  1240) and Europe ( n =  1328). There were no differences in data analysis technique by regions ( χ2 (12) = 1.29, n.s.) with regression (65%) using the dominant method. AN[C]OVA and MAN[C]OVA (6%); correlation (4%); multi-level analysis (7%); structural equation modelling [SEM], path analysis (21%); other quantitative methods (3%) were less prevalent.

Comparison of Asian studies across outlets

Consistent with our specific interest in studies conducted in Asia, we examined the methodological features of Asian studies published in different outlets. More specifically, we compared the studies published in the Academy of Management Journal , (AMJ) and Human Resource Management (HRM) with those published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management (IJHRM). This analysis is meant to answer the question of “why data collected in Asia, including China, are more likely to be published in IJHRM instead of AMJ and HRM”. We found that Asian HRM studies, published in IJHRM in comparison with AMJ and HRM are characterized as being more single-level as opposed to multi-level (87% vs 65%), examining more direct relationships between HR and outcomes (76% vs 62%) as opposed to moderation (77% vs 50%) and mediation relationships (75% vs 64%), using more subjective data (84% vs 68%) as opposed to objective data (12% vs 20%), and having a more international focus (42% vs 25%).

Discussion & Conclusion

This study examines the methodological choices of research investigating the HR practices – performance link by geographic region over a 20-year period. We focused on internal, external, construct and statistical conclusion validity of 241 studies using data collected from Asia, Europe and North America. Some of our results are universal phenomena and not limited in relevance to Asia, although in line with our aim we present implications related to the HR field in the context of Asia.

The last two decades show an increase in studies using data collected in Asia, particularly China, and a reduction in studies out of North America (Bainbridge et al. 2016 ). This is not surprising given the far-reaching institutional change and societal transformation occurring in China. Regarding the internal validity, the results show that the three regions did not differ in terms of the prevalence of cross sectional research designs and the form of the HR practices -outcome relationship (direct, moderator, mediator or moderated mediator). The results found different sources of data with studies coming out of North America tending to utilize more archival data while Europe and Asia, including China, were more likely to use field study data. In fact, 96% of studies from Asia and 94% of research undertaken in China came from field studies. The three regions also diverged in terms of predictive design: most of the studies in which data was collected from Asia, including China, utilized a post-predictive design, where performance data collected takes place prior to HR practices data. Data collected in North America more often adopted a predictive research design in which HR practices data is collected at time 0 and performance data is collected at time 1, allowing the testing of causality. Studies that used a European sample are characterized by a contemporaneous research design in which the HR practices and performance data take place at the same time.

There were many differences by region pertaining to external validity. Studies out of North America more often came from one industry, while European and Asian studies were more likely to draw on data from two or more industries. Regarding the levels of measurement of the dependent variable, we found that data collected in Asia was typically at the organization level with higher response rates while European studies were at the employee level. In comparison, studies using data from North America were more often designed at the organization and workplace/business unit/team level. The time between data collection and publication year was shorter for studies out of Asia, compared with North America and Europe.

Our overall conclusion regarding construct validity is that there are few differences by region. Studies using data from Asia, Europe and North America mainly used single (as opposed to multiple) informants to measure HR practices and the outcome variable. The three regions varied equally on the type of informant (i.e., managers, HR practitioners and employees). We found no differences in the number of controls used in the model being tested (average four) and prevalence of same source data for the HR and outcome measures, suggesting common method bias remains a problematic feature of HR scholarship. The regions differed in terms of outcome measures (subjective versus objective performance data).

While studies that used data from Europe or Asia primarily utilized subjective data, objective performance data or a combination of subjective and objective performance data was much more common in studies that used data from North America. In addition, the number of variables in the model was higher for studies using data from a European country or North America in comparison to studies out of Asia, including China.

In terms of statistical conclusion validity, studies in Asia drew on smaller sample sizes than those conducted in Europe or North America, although, as noted above, had higher response rates. There were no differences pertaining to how data was analysed with regression the common technique across regions.

Theoretical and practical implications

There are several theoretical and practical implications of our results. The institutional theory claims that actors’ decisions are not only the result of rational decision-making seeking to improve effectiveness, but are also influenced by the institutional context in which they operate (Kostova, 1999 ). Following this logic, we see an opportunity to study research methods from an institutional perspective. Scholars exist in conditions of institutional duality, in that they experience pressures to obtain both internal legitimacy in the context which research is conducted (Asia in our case) and external legitimacy from the academic field as evidenced by publication in a top journal.

We suggest there is possible tension as scholars endeavour to attain internal legitimacy and respond to calls to adapt theories to explain Asia-specific phenomena or develop new models and theories relevant to the Asian context (Tsui, 2006 ) while at the same time needing to meet an equally pressing requirement of external legitimacy by adopting norms or assumptions around academic rigor. Our findings show that research undertaken in Asia, Europe and North America has converged to measure constructs and analyse data in similar ways. This may be due to the influence of international research teams or editor and reviewer’s preferences and demands (see Lin & Sanders, 2014 ). This result is evident in that validity related to the fit between measures and the underlying constructs they are designed to represent (construct validity) and the ability to make recommendations regarding the relationship between variables based on statistical evidence about co-variation and prediction (statistical conclusion validity) do not differ by geographic region. It appears that in this regard, research conducted in Asia is largely a direct application of Western practices. As the current positivist research paradigm originates from the West, established criteria in relation to what is deemed valid research constitutes isomorphic pressure which Asian scholars need to follow, should they wish to gain legitimacy in the field and publish in top journals.

Despite the isomorphic pressure, substantial variations across regions were found regarding internal and external validity, especially in relation to studies undertaken in Asia. We believe that the broader context (i.e., local institutions) of Asia, and China more specifically influences these findings. Many scholars refer to the Chinese environment as dynamic and subject to ongoing change (Krug & Hendrischke, 2008 ; Li, X, & Freeman, 2015 ; Zhang & Peck, 2016 ; Sheldon & Sanders, 2016 ). Given the pace of change across Asia, it is not surprising that field studies which enable the collection of real-time data are the dominant methods for undertaking research in this region. The prevalence of field studies is also a result of the lack of reliable statistical systems in developing countries such as China (Fang, 2004 ). Oftentimes researchers are left with no other choices but to rely on field studies and subjective measures, because more objective archival data is not available. In the Asian culture, field data collection is often dependent on researchers’ personal contacts (i.e., guanxi) and convenience sampling (e.g., Sun, Aryee, & Law, 2007 ; Takeuchi, Chen, & Lepak, 2009 ), which leads to smaller sample sizes and higher response rates in this area. Convenience sampling makes it challenging to focus on a single industry, because more often than not the researchers’ contacts are from multiple industries, whereas the available sample size in a single industry is severely constricted.

These features of the Asian context present barriers for researchers to conduct high-quality research in this area. In the dynamic context of Asia, where research is predominantly undertaken through field work utilizing a cross sectional research design, there is risk that the research context and results could vary from one day to the next. This means that researchers must be careful as to the best timing of their data collection. For example, Shaw and Shi ( 2017 ) mention that Chinese organizations face unique temporal and seasonal challenges addressing mass employee turnover (e.g., after the Lunar Year Holiday and after bonus payments). This has implications for researchers’ decisions regarding when they should enter the research site and whether a predictive or longitudinal research design is feasible. It also requires scholars to consider the influence of their temporal decisions on their research findings.

The overreliance on subjective measures risks undermining research validity. While research has found that subjective measures of firm performance are equivalent to those used for objective performance (Wall, Michie, Patterson, Wood, Sheehan, Clegg & West, 2004 ), simultaneous use of subjective measures of both HR and performance could compound the problem due to common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003 ). Given the pervasive use of common source data in HR research, scholars may like to reconsider the current convention of relying on subjective measures of performance and shift towards an objective or combined approach. This is especially important for conducting research at the employee level, where it has been shown that subjective measures should not be used as proxies for objective measures and scholars are cautioned about using the terms interchangeably (Bommer, Johnson, Rich, Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1995 ).

Despite the challenges, the unique environment in Asia also offers opportunities to researchers. The many changes in this area provide scholars with a fertile research setting for studying the effects of HR on employees, teams, and organization performance over time. For instance, related to the HR process approach (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004 ; Sanders, Shipton & Gomes, 2014 ; Ostroff & Bowen, 2016 ) in general and attribution theory (Nishii, Lepak & Schneider, 2008 ) more specifically, scholars could investigate how people attribute the locus of causality (i.e., the internal versus external dimension of attribution): To what or whom do employees attribute organizational change? For example, do employees attribute the driver of change to their employer (internal) or government (external to the organization)? How do they respond to the change and their attribution of the change? We believe that China is an ideal context for longitudinal research for these types of questions. Further, the transition from traditional to modern management philosophies and styles and their co-existence in the country makes it a great setting for quasi-experimental studies (e.g., Yan, Peng, & Francesco, 2011 ), which have been underutilized in HR research. Scholars may like to make better use of these opportunities.

The challenges we have identified also point to directions moving forward. We have acknowledged that the heavy reliance on field studies and subjective measures may be due to existing databases not capturing the dynamism of the Asian or Chinese context or because they are incomplete. We recommend that academic institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese government start building databases such as the Workplace Employee Relations Surveys (WERS) in the United Kingdom (UK) or the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). The benefit of archival data is that trends over time can be depicted, and databases are generally of good quality in terms of construct validity. For example, HILDA provides longitudinal data on the lives of Australian residents against a wide range of factors such as family dynamics, economics, well-being and the labour market. These databases are administrated by government agencies; for instance, the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in the UK is responsible for collecting WERS data, which are subsidized by the government, and open to scholars. Support of trade associations should also be garnered to allow researchers to access organizations in specific industries and conduct in-depth analysis. Shaw and Shi ( 2017 ) point out that turnover research in Western industries has greatly benefited from this. We observe that some joint action in data collection has been taken. For example, the study of Shen, Au, and Birtch ( 2016 ) utilize a representative sample collected in remarkable joint efforts of multiple government departments and a research association. Such progress is welcome.

Furthermore, changes are needed from Chinese universities and business schools. We believe that the shorter time lag between data collection and publication in China is linked to the Chinese academic system. The Chinese academic system for performance and promotion is similar to the US system (Jia, You and Du, 2012 ; Tsui, 2006 ; Van de Ven & Jing, 2012 ). Scholars, especially early career researchers (ECR) endeavour to publish as soon as possible to meet promotion criteria. In many universities, quantity is gauged over quality and impact (Tsui, 2013 ). We question whether this practice is the best strategy given the time it takes for a rigorous theoretical review and the collection of high-quality data. In recent years, there have been numerous calls for Chinese researchers to conduct indigenous research (Leung, 2012 ; Li, et al., 2012 ), develop a Chinese theory of management (Barney & Zhang, 2008; Sheldon & Sanders, 2017) and live up to the idea of socially responsible scholarship (Tsui, 2013 ). Concurring with others, we encourage Chinese Business Schools to rethink their academic performance evaluation system and take a long-term perspective by considering the value of a scholarship to Chinese society. Such changes would encourage researchers to conduct socially responsible research (Tsui, 2013 ) and direct their attention to addressing grand societal challenges (George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016 ). This may also assist in managing the challenges associated with institutional duality in that research which is conducted in Asia and trapped between the paradoxical aims of local relevance and international publication requirements (Meyer, 2006 ).

Finally, we believe the entire management scholarly community needs to adjust its practices. Referring to evidence-based management and the quality of data, Rynes and Bartunek ( 2017 ) warn that journals are more likely to publish papers which report significant results, instead of non-statistically significant but important findings. We believe that some research designs such as single level, single informant and same source research designs often lead to more significant results because the data is not independent of each other. We question whether (associate) editors, reviewers and researchers receive sufficient incentives and are motivated to design robust and valid research (see also Lin & Sanders, 2014 ).

Limitations

Sheldon and Sanders ( 2016 ) emphasize that variation within China is immense and undertaking research at the country level is inappropriate because of the differences in regions and industries. One of the limitations of this study is that our data did not allow us to examine the variance of methodological choices within China. In the future, scholars should consider providing more detailed information pertaining to regions within a country with regards to data collection.

It is important to note that our study considers data collected in Europe, North America, or Asia (China). This does not necessarily mean that the authors are from these locations. According to our observation, it is more likely that at least one of the authors is from the country in which the data is collected. The practice of collecting data from Asia is likely to have emerged in the early 1990s when Chinese people became more mobile, leading to the growth in the number of China-based multinational enterprises (MNEs) and Chinese academics who had studied and worked abroad. In addition, such mobility has produced opportunities for Western scholars to undertake research in Asia by supervising international research students (Sheldon & Sanders, 2016 ) and collaborating with Chinese scholars. A question we have not answered is whether Chinese or Asian scholars were trained at a western university, or one of the approximately 2000 Chinese universities. We also did not consider domestic scholars that publish in their own language. These studies are largely invisible to Western scholars (Bainbridge et al. 2016 ; Sheldon & Sanders, 2016 ).

In sum, despite these unanswered questions and similarities across regions pertaining to cross-sectional, single-informant and single-level designs, research conducted in Asia is distinguished by several features. Studies that utilize data collected from Asia mainly employ subjective outcome measures at the organizational level gathered via field research following a post-predictive design. In addition, studies from Asia are more recent, and show a shorter time gap between data collection and publication, have smaller sample sizes but higher response rates.

Due to small numbers, we did not include studies conducted in Africa (1% of all studies) and Oceania (5% of all studies).

Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) was included in the review but no study met the eligibility criteria in the 20-year timeframe under investigation.

Countries from Europe (frequencies between brackets) are: Austria (2), Belgium (6), Denmark (2), Finland (4), France (6), Germany (2), Greece (8), Hungary (1), Ireland (9), Italy (3), the Netherlands (16), Norway (3), Portugal (4), Russia (3), Slovenia (1), Spain (20), Sweden (3), Switzerland (2), Ukraine (1), and the United Kingdom (33). Countries and frequencies for North America are Canada (19) and United States of America (49), and countries and frequencies for Asia are: Bangladesh (1), China, including Hong Kong, and Taiwan (57), India (10), Japan (6), Jordan (2), South Korea (3), Lebanon (1), Malaysia (1), Pakistan (2), Philippines (1), Singapore (3), and Thailand (1). Frequencies may be higher than the amount of studies due to articles / studies that compare different countries.

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Acknowledgements

The authors like to express their appreciation to the Editor of the journal and two anonymous reviewers. We like to thanks Dr Hugh Bainbridge for his leading role in the construction of the protocol and data collection.

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Karin Sanders

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Cai-Hui Veronica Lin

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KS carried out the analyses, and wrote an outline of the front end of the manuscript. JC and CHL worked on the next versions of the manuscript in which JC paid particular attention to the theoretical contribution, and CHL on the implications for Chinese research. KS, JC and CHL worked on the Discussion of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Sanders, K., Cogin, J.A. & Lin, CH.V. Methodological choices of HR research conducted in Asia. Front. Bus. Res. China 11 , 11 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s11782-017-0011-9

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Received : 20 June 2017

Accepted : 17 August 2017

Published : 08 September 2017

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s11782-017-0011-9

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