The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2016

Vol. 27, No. 10, 1101–1133, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2015.1060510

Expectations, effectiveness and discrepancies: exploring multiple HR

roles in the Chinese business context
Zhonghua Gaoa, Yingying Zhangb, Chen Zhaoc*, Chaoping Lid and Chunbo Wud
a
College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, P.R.
China; bCUNEF, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain; cSchool of Management,
Capital Normal University, Beijing, P.R. China; dSchool of Public Administration and Policy,
Renmin University of China, Beijing, P.R. China
One of the strategic issues in human resource management (HRM) research is the
recognition of HR professionals’ roles, yet how effective HR professionals are
performing these roles has seldom been studied. This article conducts a two-phase
study to explore the role expectations, role effectiveness and discrepancies of HR
professionals in the Chinese business context. In the first phase, six roles in three
domains were determined using a qualitative method. In the second phase, hypotheses
were proposed and tested empirically. The results highlight that the value of role
effectiveness is significantly lower than that of role expectation. In terms of perceptive
discrepancies between HR and non-HR individuals, significant differences exist on the
expectations of the roles in the strategic domain (i.e. facilitator and supporter), and also
on the effectiveness of the roles in all three domains, except for that of facilitator in the
strategic domain. The results also indicate that the effectiveness of each different role
has a distinctive weighting in explaining the overall effectiveness of HRM, and that
different groups hold diverse views on the relationship between role effectiveness and
overall effectiveness.
Keywords: China; discrepancy; HR professionals; role effectiveness; role expectation

Introduction
Many previous studies have confirmed that the strategic participation of human resource
(HR) professionals is positively associated with HR’s contribution to organisations (Uen,
Ahlstrom, Chen, & Tseng, 2012). To make HR’s job content more strategic, many
strategic roles of HR professionals, such as ‘business partner’ and ‘internal consultant’,
have been reinvented and emphasised, not only through normative discourses but also
through empirical studies (Ulrich, 1996; Wright, 2008). For instance, Ulrich (1996) argued
that HR professionals should play four roles if they were to add value to their
organisations: administrative expert, change agent, employee champion and strategic
partner. Unfortunately, in many circumstances HR professionals cannot handle all these
roles at the same time. Moreover, inherent conflicts exist, particularly between daily
operational roles and long-term strategic roles, given the competing demands made on
HRM by employers and employees (Caldwell, 2008). Additionally, discrepancies arise
between ideal roles (role expectations) and roles as practised (role effectiveness), and there
are also perceptive differences between HR professionals and their constituencies (Wright,
McMahan, Snell, & Gerhart, 2001).
Most previous studies have used western developed countries as their main research
sites. As a developing economy, China and its business and management phenomena have

*Corresponding author. Email: chenmendrey@163.com

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

12102 Z. Gao et al.

attracted significant attention from both researchers and practitioners during recent
decades (Tsui, Schoonhoven, Meyer, Lau, & Milkovich, 2004). In this context, human
resource management (HRM) has been a critical and strategic factor for the successful
management of and engagement in business in China (Lamond et al., 2009). HR
departments and their people – HR professionals – have been expected to add value to a
business by developing and employing human resource potential since the introduction of
HRM in China in the early 1980s (Zhao, 2009; Zeng & Su, 2009). Therefore, this study has
four aims: (a) to explore and measure the role sets of HR professionals in China, (b) to
reveal the discrepancies between HR role expectations and related role effectiveness,
(c) to uncover the perspective differences between HR and non-HR professionals, and
(d) to determine the contribution of the specific effectiveness of HR roles to overall HRM
effectiveness, and to examine the moderating effects of professional identity on the
relationship between the effectiveness of HR roles and overall HRM effectiveness.

Theoretical background and literature review

Role-based approach in strategic HRM literatures
In strategic HRM literatures, the best HRM practices associated with positive
organisational outcomes have drawn much attention, and various types of HRM systems
have been identified to describe the architecture of these practices, for example high
performance (e.g. Huselid, 1995), high involvement (e.g. Guthrie, 2001), and high
commitment (e.g. Xiao & Björkman, 2006) work systems. However, as Becker and
Gerhart (1996) argued, it is more important to figure out the principles that determine the
architecture of HRM practices than to design the best HRM practices without figuring out
the underlying principles. The role-based HRM approach was thereby employed by many
previous studies to reveal these underlying principles (e.g. Conner & Ulrich, 1996; Ulrich,
1998). Principles which may be beneficial not only in explaining the reason for choosing
some specific types of HRM system instead of others, but also in helping to determine
suitable HRM practices and behavioural patterns for HR departments and HR
professionals (Becker & Huselid, 2006). For instance, Walker (1994) pointed out that
HR departments should be business partners and therefore should be integrated into the
real business processes of enterprises. Accordingly, HR professionals should fulfil a
continuum of roles including support, service, consulting and leadership, and be expected
to pay equal attention to both strategic and operational activities. As we have already
observed, the roles of HR departments are mainly embodied in the multiple roles of HR
professionals. Thus, in order to make our study more focused, we concentrate on the roles
that HR professionals should fulfil in their daily work.
The theoretical basis of the role-based HRM approach is role theory (Kahn, Wolfe,
Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthai, 1964; Katz & Kahn, 1978), in which role sets are often taken
to predict the behavioural pattern of role holders (Mantere, 2008). Usually, role sets
consist of the multiple role expectations of role holders. The primary function of role
expectations is to ‘maintain the role system and induce the required role behaviours’ (Katz
& Kahn, 1978, p. 189). Role holders usually perceive their multiple role expectations by
interacting with others in particular environments (Biddle, 1986; Dierdorff & Morgeson,
2007). These interactions can help them to learn what others expect them to do, and give
meaning to their daily work by enacting behaviours which are appropriate for their
multiple roles. In this sense, HR role expectations describe what HR professionals should
or should not do to meet the multiple needs of their constituencies (Machin, 1973, 1979;
Marginson & Ogden, 2005; Mantere, 2008). In role theory, role behaviours are often
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 3
1103

employed as criteria to measure the effectiveness of each role expectation of key

individuals. In other words, role behaviours can be taken to reveal how well they are
doing. Therefore, HR role effectiveness is put forward in this study to describe the state in
which HR professionals meet some of their particular role expectations in their role sets in
line with their real role behaviours.
The role-based HRM approach was formed in the late 1970s. Since then, the approach
has been adopted to demonstrate HR’s value in business and to determine suitable HRM
practices. Before the 1980s, HR professionals playing control-based roles such as policy
maker, implementer, and supervisor were widely criticised as inefficient and a heavy
burden on business. It was suggested that they should walk out of headquarters and
participate in creating value in business to change their inefficient image (Foulkes &
Morgan, 1977). In the 1980s, influenced by system theory, the HR function, which was
considered a subsystem within the organisational system, was expected to provide
assistance to the achievement of business objectives by collaborating with other functional
subsystems. In doing so, HR professionals were supposed to fulfil service-based roles,
including the role of functional expert, offering HRM services (e.g. employee selection,
training and development, performance appraisals, compensation etc.) to effectively
satisfy the needs of their internal constituencies, and the role of business consultant, to be
proficient in helping line managers to better meet the needs of external constituencies
(Tsui, 1987). In the 1990s, strategy-based roles were advocated by scholars. The positive
impacts of HR professionals in the elaboration and execution of strategy were broadly
recognised (e.g. Ulrich, 1998; Walker, 1994; Wright & McMahan, 1992). Accordingly,
activities delivering strategic outcomes, such as conducting an organisational audit and
helping managers to identify components needing change in order to achieve strategic
objectives, were taken by HR professionals as the new agenda. In recent years,
commitment-based roles have attracted much attention for being accompanied by the
introduction of high commitment and high involvement work systems in the strategic
HRM field. HR professionals were expected to motivate employees’ job morale and
arouse their self-regulated work behaviours (e.g. Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005; Ulrich,
Brockbank, Johnson, Scandholtz, & Younger, 2008). The evolution described above
shows that the role sets of HR professionals have been changing and adjusting constantly
in accordance with the profession’s contexts, which is consistent with the assertion of
Ulrich and Beatty (2001).

HRM contexts in China and their impacts on HR roles

In strategic HRM literatures, it is widely recognised that the structure of firm’s HRM
practices is significantly influenced by contexts such as a country’s institutions and the
culture in which a firm operates (Su & Wright, 2012). Similarly, the role sets of HR
professionals, which are helpful in figuring out the principles that determine the
architecture of HRM practices (Becker & Huselid, 2006), might differ under the influence
of the institutional and ideological contexts in China. We therefore review these contexts
below.

Institutional contexts
The HR profession has been gradually installed in China after the opening-up policy was
implemented in 1978. Thus, we track and analyse the institutional contexts, along with the
implementation of three rounds of institutional and economic reforms, which exerted deep
14104 Z. Gao et al.

influence on the growth of the HR profession. The purpose of this section is to better
understand the development of the Chinese HR profession, and to determine the driving
forces of the transition of HR role sets i. Depending on the characteristics of each
institutional and economic reform round (Warner, 2010), the growth of the HR profession
could be divided into three stages: exploration, development and integration. Throughout
the course of the HR profession’s growth at each stage, expectations of HR professionals
have shifted and extended to meet the challenges stemming from institutional and
economic transformation.
The first exploration stage started with the inception of Chinese economic reforms and
the implementation of the opening-up policy in 1978, and lasted until the late 1980s.
At that time, the modern HRM function had not yet come into being, and three functional
departments (i.e. organisation, personnel, and labour) within enterprises were in charge of
people-related issues. People working in these departments were expected to act as agents
of the government and to address people-related issues on its behalf, because most
enterprises during this period were state-owned enterprises under government control at
different levels.
The development stage expanded throughout the 1990s. Following the promotion of
personnel reform in 1992 and the issue of labour law in 1994, the modern HRM function
was established and constructed under the guidance of and with reference to western HRM
practices, which were introduced into China on a large scale, particularly by scholars and
practitioners who had overseas HRM research or work experience (Zhao, 2009).
Accordingly, the HR profession came into being and gradually became popular in China
(Lin, 2008). HR professionals were expected to build systematic HRM processes to help
enterprises keep pace with the growth of the market economy.
HRM stepped in at the third stage of integration at the beginning of the twenty-first
century. It was estimated that there were more than four million HR practitioners in China
at the end of 2005 (Zeng & Su, 2009). HR professionals were expected to help enterprises
to build core competences and to obtain competitive advantages. Moreover, after the issue
of the Labour Contract Law in 2008, employer–employee relationship management
became an important agenda for HR professionals, and they are now expected to cultivate
new incentives to release the potential of knowledge workers, considered the major source
of human capital in a knowledge economy.
In conclusion, with the growth of the HR profession, the identity of HR professionals
has changed significantly, from a superior position in the first stage to a partnership role in
the second stage, and to the image of being subservient in the third stage. Simultaneously,
the roles of HR professionals in China have shifted from administrative supervisor to
business partner and HRM service provider.

Ideological contexts
This study analyses ideological contexts primarily by combining the view of human
relationship-based management, an indigenous framework that reflects Chinese cultural
factors, and a multiple-constituency approach, a global theoretical perspective formed in
western culture. As many scholars have noted, HRM concepts were introduced from
western cultures but were nurtured in the Chinese culture (Zhao, 2009; Zeng & Su, 2009),
and this combination constitutes a fundamental contextualisation for understanding the
HRM phenomenon in China (Su & Wright, 2012; Tsui, 2009; Zhou, Liu, & Hong, 2012).
Thus, the purpose of this section is to determine the role sets of HR professionals in
China based on the combination of the human relationship-based management view seen
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 5
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from the emic perspective, and the multiple-constituency approach seen from the etic
perspective.

Human relationship based management. Human relationship based management as

proposed was based on the concepts of Confucianism (Lamond & Zheng, 2010).
Confucianism, referring to ‘the acceptance of the legitimacy of hierarchy and the valuing
of perseverance and thrift’ and its belief system, is widely considered to be the most
influential traditional factor in people management in China, although several other
sources of traditional values exist, such as Buddhism and Daoism (Warner, 2008, 2009,
2010; Zhang, Dolan, Lingham, & Altman, 2009). The essence of Confucianism
emphasises the relationships established with multiple targets in society. Generally, such
relationships could be classified into two basic types based on these targets: relationships
with organisations, and relationships with the individuals in organisations, such as
superiors, colleagues and subordinates. Thus, the sources of HR roles in the Chinese
business context can be explored in combination with the two basic types of relationship
established in organisations as follows.
On the one hand, relationships with organisations have been consciously defined as
benefitting societies through benevolence, which reflects group ethics such as loyalty,
patriotism, solidarity and respect for seniority. Societies in Confucian belief systems
have a broad scope and include family, community, country and even the universe
(Hwang, 1995). Confucianism advocates that the higher one’s identity, the greater the
responsibilities one should take on for being benevolent to one’s society, which is
summarised as ‘regulating the family, ruling the state and the world’. From this
perspective, HR professionals are expected to have an overall perspective of long-term
benefit, and should provide the necessary support for the strategic development of the
entire organisation.
On the other hand, relationships with the individuals in organisations could be
explained by using the five cardinal relationships in Chinese society, comprising
relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, elder brother and younger brother,
husband and wife, and friend and friend (Chen & Chen, 2004). Excluding the three family-
based relations, the two basic relationships (ruler and subject, friend and friend) that every
Chinese faces could be translated into superior –subordinate and colleague – colleague
relationships. Specifically, HR professionals also face and handle multiple relationships
with other individuals, such as their superiors, other line and functional managers, fellow
employees and their subordinates, which can be regarded as the sources of HR roles
in China.

Multiple-constituency approach. The multiple cardinal relationships emphasised by

Confucianism might provide us with many useful insights to determine the sources of HR
roles. However, given the lack of systematic theories in previous studies to explain the
specific influences of Confucianism on HRM practices, it is difficult for us to gain a deeper
understanding of the content of HR roles from the perspective of human relationship based
management alone. As many scholars have argued, modern Chinese HRM practices
were mainly imported from western countries (Warner, 2010), and thus some western
concepts can be regarded as ideological roots to explain the HRM phenomenon in China.
Among these concepts, the multiple-constituency approach, widely applied to assess the
effectiveness of HRM systems since the 1980s, can be employed to reveal the content of
HR roles in this study.
16106 Z. Gao et al.

In terms of this approach, many researchers have argued that HR professionals should
pay more attention to satisfying the needs of various constituencies and providing the
appropriate services; numerous studies regard the extent to which those needs are met as
a criterion of HRM effectiveness (Tsui, 1984, 1990; Wright & Snell, 2005; Wright et al.,
2001; Wright & McMahan, 1992). Similarly, the multiple-constituency approach
concerning how to satisfy the needs of various constituencies in organisations has been
adopted to figure out the content of HR roles (Ulrich, 1998; Ulrich et al., 2008).
Therefore, this approach will be applied to explore the role sets of HR professionals, and
then to evaluate the expectations and effectiveness of these roles in the Chinese business
context.
Constituencies at the organisational level are executives from the top management
team. To satisfy their needs, HR executives should clearly understand the influences
of external forces, including economic, social and technological forces, on the
implementation of organisational strategy. Moreover, HR executives should know how
to demonstrate their tangible contributions by aligning HR strategies and practices with
the strategic needs of the business (Ulrich, 1998) and by driving the issues critical to the
business (Wright & Snell, 2005; Wright, McMahan, McCormick, & Sherman, 1998).
Constituencies at departmental level are managers from both line and functional
departments. To help those managers create business value, HR departments and their
people should provide services effectively and efficiently (Ulrich, 1998; Ulrich & Beatty,
2001; Walker, 1994; Wright et al., 2001). The needs and requirements of line executives
and functional managers are fulfilled on a day-to-day departmental basis (Tsui, 1990;
Ulrich, 1996); therefore, most of the energy and time of HR professionals are spent dealing
with issues from constituencies at this level. Constituencies at the individual level are
employees across the entire organisation. As Ulrich (1998) stated, HR professionals
should play a critical role in improving employees’ engagement, and offering employees
opportunities for personal and professional growth. Therefore, meeting employees’
personal needs and encouraging their commitment to work should be included as role
responsibilities of HR professionals.

Methodology
In order to achieve the objectives in this study, we take a two-phase study design with a
combination of qualitative and quantitative methods along the lines of Yang, Chen, Choi,
and Zou (2000) and Tsui, Wang, and Xin (2006), which employed a similar research
methodology. In the first-phase study, a qualitative method was employed to determine the
role sets of HR professionals in the Chinese business context, then a quantitative method
was adopted to develop a measure to test the specific roles of HR professionals. In the
second-phase study, empirical design was taken to test the hypotheses which were
proposed and detailed, to reveal the discrepancies between HR role expectations and
effectiveness, the perspective differences between HR and non-HR professionals, the
relationships between HR role effectiveness and HRM effectiveness, and the moderating
effect of professional identity on these relationships.

Study 1: identifying multiple HR roles in the Chinese business context

Samples and procedure
Given the exploratory nature of this phase of study, face-to-face personal interviews with
open-ended questions were carried out by researchers to fulfil the objective. The following
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section describes the samples, procedure and coding process for the qualitative part of the
first-phase study.

Samples. Interviews were carried out in the workplace of a well-known Chinese high-tech
enterprise group with headquarters in Beijing and seven branch subsidiaries in other
Chinese provinces. This enterprise was selected for its accessibility and characteristics that
combine modern and traditional HRM, given its knowledge-intensive nature. Moreover, to
some extent, different headquarters and branch subsidiary locations also helped prevent
interviewee bias.
Twenty-three employees were invited to participate in our interview, including
ten people from the HRM function and 13 people from other functions. To gain a
comprehensive understanding of the entire picture of the HR profession and the work of
HR professionals (Ulrich et al., 2008), we involved 10 HR professionals from different
levels in the organisational hierarchy of this enterprise group: a vice-president in charge
of the entire group’s HRM function, seven mid-level HR managers from each branch
in the different provinces, and two lowest-level HR staff members from one of these
branches.
Thirteen people from other functions were also involved in our interviews as
constituencies of the HRM function (Tsui, 1984, 1990), including five line managers from
production and assembly departments, seven functional managers from finance
departments of each branch, and an ordinary employee from the marketing department
who was randomly selected by the researchers. The average age of these interviewees was
34; six were women and 15 were married. All of them had been working in this company
for more than 7 years and had witnessed the growth of the group, which ensured a full
expression of the functionality of the company.

Procedure. Open-ended questions including two parts were designed in advance,

according to the criteria in Conner and Ulrich (1996) and separately for HR
professionals and non-HR professionals. One part was designed for the interviews with
HR professionals, and they were asked to determine their responsibilities (what they
should do) and specific contributions (what they had already done). The other part was
compiled for the interviews with non-HR professionals, and they were asked to indicate
what competencies HR professionals should possess to meet the needs of various
constituencies. All interviews were conducted by at least two researchers. One was
responsible for conducting the interviews, and another took notes and made
observations. Each interview lasted from 45 to 60 min. With the permission of the
interviewees, all interviews were audio recorded and transcribed into text for further
analysis.

Coding process. Code development of a thematic analysis was employed to classify

categories of HR roles (Boyatzis, 1998). Three researchers were involved in the coding
process, following a three-step analysis procedure. First, two researchers reduced the
transcribed text into independent sentences, given their understanding of the research
objective and raw materials, and the third researcher checked the results to ensure that
each sentence had a single and clear meaning. Then, 272 items were abstracted from
the text records. Second, all sentences were separately classified into three domains
by different independent researchers, and then inconsistencies were discussed until an
18108 Z. Gao et al.

agreement was reached. During this step, a coding principle was established, and
three domains of the HR role were determined: strategy-related, operation-related and
people-related. Third, another two researchers independently categorised all sentences in
each domain based on the content similarity of each item after reading the coding
principle. Finally, six HR role categories emerged as common categories, with two
categories in each domain, and category agreement (CA) reached 75%, which was higher
than the recommended value of 0.70.

Qualitative research results

This subsection presents the results of the qualitative study in the first phase. Each
category of the three HR role domains is presented with its definition and sample quotes
from interviewees. In total, six HR role categories were identified: facilitator, supporter,
consultant, partner, guardian and motivator (see Table 1).

HR roles in the strategy-related domain. In this domain, two HR role categories were
identified: facilitator and supporter. Several differences were highlighted between
facilitator and supporter. First, each role has distinct priorities. Generally, a facilitator
emphasises participating in the formulation and implementation of business strategy,
whereas a supporter focuses more on giving support to a business strategy from the angle
of HR functions. Second, perspectives are also distinguished. A facilitator is regarded as
an inside role which stresses the participation of HR professionals in the entire dynamic
management process of a business strategy; as a supporter, HR professionals need to tailor
their own practices to support the realisation of business strategies.

HR roles in the operation-related domain. In this domain, two HR role categories

were identified: consultant and partner. As a consultant, HR professionals spend time
and energy on operational issues and help organisations improve operating efficiency.
As a partner, HR professionals communicate and market key HR initiatives to their
constituencies at operational level and provide training and development programs to
enable front-line managers to maximise employees’ performance potential.

HR roles in the people-related domain. In this domain, HR professionals need to be

guardians and motivators to employees. As a guardian, HR professionals develop
processes and programs to take care of employees’ personal needs and to offer them
assistance in meeting family and personal needs. As a motivator, HR professionals
actively listen and respond to employees, and develop initiatives that help build
employees’ long-term commitment to organisations.

Measure and validity

To provide a measure for the second-phase empirical study, we took each HR role
category extracted in the qualitative analysis process as an independent dimension, and
composed six items for each category to form the first draft of the HR Multiple Roles
Scale (MRS) in the Chinese business context. A two-step test was carried out: the first
step was a semi-Delphi process to discuss the content validity of the generated items; the
second step involved an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine a final draft of
the scale.
Table 1. HR role domains, categories, definitions and quotations.
Domains Categories Definitions Quotations of interviewees
Strategy- Facilitator Participating in the process of defining business strategies, and
The vice president of human resources is participating in many
related influencing the implementation of strategy strategic issues, like organization structure adjustment, task
assignments of each department, high level managers selection and
so on, and she is always keeping in mind the overall situation
We are working at collecting necessary resources to implement our
strategy, absolutely providing necessary suggestions to the design
of organizational structure in future
Supporter Aligning HR strategies with business strategy, and developing I think HRM strategy is at the top agenda of our department, but we
processes to link HR strategies to accomplish business strategy have no written provisions of HRM strategy. We have been working
to draw our blueprint for the future since 2008
We are now building and adjusting HR systems, and will do this in a
few years, because all these, such as salary, performance, post
systems, were established around 2003 according to strategies at
that time
Operation- Consultant Spending time and energy on operational issues, and helping the HR department is providing training support to other departments
related organization improve operating efficiency on how to manage project, money, and people, and introducing
many other projects, like digital project management system
HR has more communication with other departments to help them
in establishing qualifications system at present, which may be
helpful in future to select the right person for some positions, but
this is a very difficult job, and needs more involvement of HR staff
and department
Partner Communicating and marketing key business and HR initiatives and We usually go ahead to talk with other departments on issues like
providing training and development programs to enable front line personnel and financial. If one department wants to calculate human
managers to maximize employees’ performance potential capital, they will invite us (HR) to participate
HR people have many connections with line departments, and work
The International Journal of Human Resource Management

with them on recruitment and training design, position adjustment,

and labor relations management
People- Guardian Developing processes and programs to take care of employee HR department should care for the benefit of every employee.
related personal needs, and offering assistance to help employees meet In addition to staff training, contact between HR and the ordinary
family and personal needs employee is the declaration of welfare insurance
9
1109

(Continued)
 10

Table 1 – continued.
1110

Domains Categories Definitions Quotations of interviewees

Motivator Actively listening and responding to employees, and developing
initiatives that help build employee commitment
There is no clear standard to what extent HR should provide help to
individual employees on private staff, like child care, flexible
working time, and other work-family balance plans
We organize employees to celebrate traditional festivals like a
family, like the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn festival and
Spring Festival. Sometimes we will give them a bonus
Every year the HR department has some initiatives to reward
excellent employees, and there are some occasions that those
employees will be honored publicly. Also, they can give a speech as
a model for others
Z. Gao et al.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 11
1111

Semi-Delphi process. A panel of 19 experts in the field of HRM including academics,

researchers and practitioners participated in discussing the content validity of these items.
To increase the reliability and validity of the items, items from the scales of Conner and
Ulrich (1996) and Wright et al. (2001) were also involved in the selection process. We take
these items representing HR roles in China in accordance with the approach adopted to
measure leadership effectiveness by Yukl (1999). After several rounds of discussion, two
more items were added to each role expectation category and the descriptions were
slightly adapted. Finally, a draft of the scale with 48 items, including 36 items written
by researchers and 12 items adapted from other studies, was generated for further
EFA testing.

Exploratory factor analysis. A questionnaire with defined items as previously mentioned

was distributed to 300 HR professionals with at least 2 years of HR work experience
through a part-time HR training programme in Beijing, and 223 questionnaires were
returned. EFA (principle component with varimax rotation) was used to explore the
collected data. Three criteria were used to judge whether an item should be retained in the
final draft of the scale: (a) Eigenvalues larger than 1; (b) items with high loadings
(higher than 0.50); and (c) no high cross loadings (with a loading difference larger than
0.35). Through several steps, six factors were obtained – accounting for 63.02% of the
variance – with Eigenvalues higher than 1. Each item loaded highly on the relative factor
that ranged from 0.51 to 0.95, and no items had heavy cross loadings. According to the
EFA results, four items heavily loaded on the factor of facilitator, five items heavily loaded
on the factor of supporter, three items heavily loaded on the factor of consultant, five items
heavily loaded on the factor of partner, six items heavily loaded on the factor of guardian,
and five items heavily loaded on the factor of motivator. In total, 28 items were left in the
final draft of the Chinese HR MRS for further study (see Table 2).

Study 2: hypotheses testing

Role expectations and role effectiveness of HR professionals
Undoubtedly, under the circumstances featured by the blending of Chinese traditional
ideology and some western thoughts (Warner, 2008, 2009), Chinese HR professionals often
assume more expectations than their western counterparts. For instance, influenced by
Confucianism and the multiple-constituency approach, the role sets of HR professionals
have been enriched, and they are expected to deal with multiple relationships in
organisations and simultaneously satisfy the needs of their constituencies. Besides, along
with the growth of the HR profession in China, radical changes of HRM styles have taken
place in response to the fast-changing Chinese institutional environment (Zhu, Warner, &
Rowley, 2007), and the strategic value of HR professionals has been gradually recognised
by their constituencies in the Chinese business context. Thus, more and more role
expectations have been raised for HR professionals. For instance, they are expected not
only to be proficient in providing effective HR services to internal constituencies, but also
contribute to building the core competences for enterprises through cultivating the loyalty
and commitment of key employees and controlling the cost of peripheral employees (Zhu,
Zhang, & Shen, 2012).
Generally, the growth of role expectations and requirements will lead to the faster
consumption of individuals’ resources (Hobfoll, 1989; e.g., time, energy, emotions,
psychological efficacy, knowledge, skills and abilities). If role holders cannot muster
 12

Table 2. Results of EFAa.

1112

Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor 5 Factor 6

F1 Participating in the process of defining business strategies 0.86
F2 Influencing the formation of business strategies 0.73
F3 Facilitating the implementation of business strategies 0.59
F4 Helping top managers adapt to changes 0.54
S1 Forming HR strategies according to business strategies 0.82
S2 Tailoring HR practices to HR strategies 0.81
S3 Ensuring the implementation of HR practices with business strategies 0.81
S4 Designing HR initiatives to improve organizational change capability 0.78
S5 Developing processes to link HR strategies to accomplish business strategy 0.77
C1 Helping to improve the efficiency of business processes 0.70
C2 Helping to improve the productivity of operations 0.62
C3 Adapting HR initiatives to issues in daily operation 0.61
P1 Communicating with line managers proactively 0.78
P2 Helping line managers build up talent pool 0.74
P3 Providing training and developing programs for line managers 0.63
P4 Providing relevant law assistance to line managers 0.54
Z. Gao et al.

P5 Establishing human resource needs and providing balancing plans 0.50

G1 Predicting employees’ needs effectively 0.82
G2 Taking time to hear employees’ voices 0.74
G3 Formulating HR initiatives to fulfill employees’ needs 0.72
G4 Providing benefit plans to employees 0.69
G5 Helping employees meet their family and personal needs 0.55
G6 Fulfilling the individualized needs of every employee 0.52
M1 Inspiring employees’ passion for work 0.75
M2 Stimulating employees’ devotion to the organization 0.73
M3 Improving employees’ morale 0.69
M4 Acting as supporter to employees 0.63
M5 Taking time to reshape organizational citizenship behavior 0.61
Eigen value 1.15 9.90 1.43 1.96 3.31 1.79
Explained variance (accumulative 63.02%) 0.04 31.92 4.62 6.32 10.67 5.78
a
n ¼ 223, *F1 represents the first letter of facilitator, respectively, F, facilitator; S, supporter; C, consultant; P, partner; G, guardian; and M, motivator.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 13
1113

enough resources in a short time, they may fail to meet these role expectations (Kahn et al.,
1964; Machin, 1979; Mantere, 2008). The same is true for HR professionals in the Chinese
business context. As the pace of increasing role expectations is accelerated along with its
rapid economic development, Chinese HR professionals are much more likely to be at
a disadvantage in gaining sufficient resources to effectively meet these expectations
(Mitsuhashi, Park, Wright, & Chua, 2000). The Chinese HR profession still remains
immature although it has grown up very fast since its formation over a period of more than
30 years (Zhao & Du, 2012): Specifically, many HRM practical frameworks and
applications are borrowed from western culture, and localised theories and modes for HR
professionals have not been established in accordance with the Chinese transitional
economy, as social culture, technical developments and business systems continue to
evolve. Thus, the immaturity of the HR profession in China leads to the skills and
knowledge deficiencies of HR personnel in meeting the increasing role expectations.
Therefore, we hypothesise the following:
Hypothesis 1: Significant discrepancies exist between role expectations and role
effectiveness of HR professionals in China. In general, role expectations
are scored higher than the respective role effectiveness.
As identified in first sub-study, HR professionals in China are expected to play six
roles: facilitator, supporter, consultant, partner, guardian and motivator. Although
different roles are required to meet the various needs of multiple constituencies, more
discrepancies between expectations and effectiveness may exist in particular roles.
In recent decades, accompanied by the rapid expansion of strategic HRM research, HR
professionals’ participation in strategic management has been heavily emphasised. It has
been proved that the strategic practices of HR professionals are more positively associated
with firm performance, and their strategic capabilities have been enhanced by participation
in strategic HRM (Huselid, Jackson, & Schuler, 1997). Thus, it can be easily inferred that
discrepancies between role expectations and role effectiveness in the strategy-related
domain are narrowing. In the Chinese business context, the strategic integration of HRM
practices is often positively associated with organisational effectiveness (Zhu, Cooper,
Thomson, De Cieri, & Zhao, 2013), which indicates that the strategic roles of HR
professionals have been fulfilled effectively. However, the roles in operation- and people-
related domains, which represent more participation in specific business practices
(Ulrich & Beatty, 2001), might be being neglected to some extent since much of the HR
professionals’ attention has been directed to strategic roles in recent years. Therefore,
the following sub-hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 1a: Comparatively lower discrepancies exist between all role expectations
and their respective effectiveness in the strategy-related domain than in
the operation and people-related domains.
Moreover, the role of supporter, who supports a business strategy from the angle of the
HRM function, has been more generally recognised as a part of strategic HRM (Schuler &
Tarique, 2007), whereas the role of facilitator, which emphasises contributions to the
formulation of a business strategy, has been less expected and performed in general,
although it is critical for the performance of a strategic HRM function (Zhang et al., 2009).
As in the Chinese business context, the role of supporter is expected and performed much
better than the role of facilitator because there are some ideological roots in Confucius’
belief systems, which individuals are expected to keep in mind the overall situation
and show their unconditional support to their organisations (Hwang 1995). In this sense,
14
1114 Z. Gao et al.

the supportive role of HR professionals in the strategy-related domain is more expected,

and in turn will be fulfilled more effectively. Therefore, we propose another sub-
hypothesis for further testing.
Hypothesis 1b: Comparatively, the role expectation and effectiveness of a supporter is
valued higher than that of a facilitator.

Perceptive differences between HR and non-HR professionals

As a famous saying goes, ‘there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.’
Similarly, different constituencies may have different views on the roles of HR
professionals and the respective effectiveness of these roles. Results obtained from
previous studies showed that perceptive differences exist among various constituencies on
both the activities of the human resource department and the meaningful criteria for
evaluating its effectiveness (Tsui, 1984, 1990; Wright et al., 2001).
For instance, Mitsuhashi et al. (2000) conducted studies on several firms operating in
China to test the different perceptions of the importance and effectiveness of HR practices
between HR individuals and others. They found that HR departments were not meeting the
performance expectations of their constituencies. Wright et al. (2001) further compared
evaluations between HR executives and line executives for five HR roles, and found that
HR executives were prone to give higher scores than line executives on the effectiveness
of all roles, and the greatest differences were observed for the most important and/or
strategic aspects of HR. Geare, Edgar, and Deng (2006) found significant perceptive
differences between HR managers and employees on the importance and effectiveness of
HRM functions in New Zealand. Yusoff, Abdullah, and Ramayah (2009) assessed the
effectiveness of HR roles using five items that respectively represented five roles described
by Wright et al. (2001), and evaluated the complete contribution of HRM using ten items
developed by Wright et al. (2001) to measure the overall effectiveness of the HRM
function. HR managers rated higher than line managers in both the effectiveness of all HR
roles and entire contributions, and reaffirmed the need for a client-centred evaluation of
effectiveness given that self-assessment is always exaggerated.
The results of previous studies revealed that HR professionals seem to score higher
than their counterparts – non-HR professionals – on the importance of the HRM function.
They also stressed the effectiveness of their work, about which other organisational
stakeholders did not necessarily agree. Accordingly, we speculate that HR and non-HR
professionals may have different views on both the role expectations for HR professionals
and the respective effectiveness of each role expectation. Therefore, we propose the
following hypothesis for the Chinese business context.
Hypothesis 2: Significant perceptive differences exist between HR and non-HR
professionals. In general, HR professionals score higher than non-HR
professionals on both HR role expectations and their respective
effectiveness.
To be specific, although strategic HRM has been emerging for decades, continuing
debates still occur regarding the importance of the strategic roles that HR departments and
HR professionals play in the process of value creation (e.g. Mitsuhashi et al., 2000; Tsui,
1987, 1990; Wright et al., 2001). However, it is uncertain and unclear what strategic HRM
is, and no agreement even exists on its definition and theoretical framework (Boxall &
Purcell, 2003). In part, HR academics and professionals have been using strategic roles to
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 15
1115

justify the value that they add to firms (Ulrich, 1989). If such activities constitute a core
part of their philosophies, HR professionals might have higher expectations than non-HR
professionals of the roles in the strategy-related domain. Comparatively, there are lower
perceptive differences in terms of the importance of the functional roles that Chinese HR
professionals are taking on in their daily work, such as handling compensation,
performance-based incentives and training, to help line executives retain top performers
and qualified people with high skills (Mitsuhashi et al., 2000). Therefore, the following
hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 2a: Higher perceptive differences in role expectations between HR
professionals and non-HR professionals exist in the strategy-related
domain than in the operation and people-related domains.
Although HR professionals tend to place greater emphasis on their strategic roles,
many of their internal constituencies, particularly managers from operational departments,
constantly expect them to prove their value by playing active roles in the business field
rather than focusing their attention solely on strategic issues (Ulrich & Beatty, 2001). The
inconsistent expectations between these two groups might lead to perceptive differences
when they evaluate the effectiveness of HR roles, particularly roles in the operation and
people-related domains. As many previous studies have noted, HR professionals tend to
exaggerate their contributions, and thus might overestimate the effectiveness of HR roles
(Geare et al., 2006; Wright et al., 2001; Yusoff et al., 2009). It has been pointed out
that HR executives in China seem to have overestimated their own performance, and
significant differences between line and HR executives’ ratings reside in the effectiveness
of the following HRM practices: communication, HR initiatives for goals, measurements,
responsibilities, labour relations, compensation and performance-based incentives
(Mitsuhashi et al., 2000). Among these practices, communication, HR initiatives for
goals, measurements and responsibilities are often taken by HR professionals to fulfil
their roles in the operation-related domain, and labour relations, compensation and
performance-based incentives are often employed by HR professionals to meet their roles
in the people-related domain. According to findings from Mitsuhashi et al. (2000), HR
professionals might also have overestimated the effectiveness of their roles in the
operation and people-related domains. Therefore, we expect that:
Hypothesis 2b: Higher perceptive differences in role effectiveness between HR
professionals and non-HR professionals exist in the operation and
people-related domains than in the strategy-related domain.

HR role effectiveness and HRM effectiveness

HRM effectiveness unlike HR role effectiveness, reflects the overall performance of HR
departments and their people rather than meeting the role expectations of particular
constituencies. In previous studies, HRM effectiveness was primarily considered an
important predictor of firm performance from a resource-based view (Huselid et al., 1997).
Moreover, the antecedents of HRM effectiveness have also been explored by many
researchers. For instance, the fulfilment of the needs of various constituencies has been
taken as an indicator of overall HRM effectiveness by advocators of the multiple-
constituency approach (Tsui, 1984, 1990; Ulrich, 1998; Ulrich et al., 2008). Based on
institutional theory, they argued that HR professionals could gain legitimacy and
acceptance by meeting or exceeding multiple role expectations from different stakeholders
16
1116 Z. Gao et al.

who were considered constituencies of HR departments (Han et al., 2006; Huselid et al.,
1997). Thus, HRM effectiveness largely depends on the summation of HR role
effectiveness, which represents how well HR professionals fulfil the role expectations of
various constituencies.
Further, the contribution of each role to HRM effectiveness needs to be identified; in
other words, the respective weights of different HR roles in explaining the entirety of
HRM effectiveness should be distinguished. In recent decades, the strategic roles of HR
professionals have received a great deal of attention in western countries, along with the
development of strategic HRM. However, focusing solely on strategic issues does little to
help HR professionals prove their contribution in the modern business context (Ulrich &
Beatty, 2001). The same is true for HR professionals in China. Su and Wright (2012)
found that some basic but essential HRM practices, such as employee selection, extensive
training, results-based performance appraisal, performance-based pay, competitive
mobility and promotion and employee discipline management, have stronger positive
effects on firm performance than the practices advocated by high-commitment and
high-involvement HRM systems. Thus, the roles in the operation and people-related
domains might have more positive associations with HRM effectiveness, and should
therefore be placed at the top of HR professionals’ agenda in China. Therefore, we
assume that:
Hypothesis 3: The effectiveness of the roles in operation and people-related domains,
such as consultant, partner, guardian and motivator, are more positively
correlated to overall HRM effectiveness than the effectiveness of the
roles in strategy-related domain, such as facilitator and supporter.
Specifically, roles in the operation-related domain represent HR professionals’
participation in the real business. In general, HR professionals make contributions to an
enterprises’ business in two ways: by providing HR services to line managers as partners
(Lawler & Mohrman, 2003; Wright et al., 2001), and by involving themselves in the value
creation process as consultants (Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005; Ulrich, 1996). HR professionals
in China face a unique set of challenges and opportunities during the transition of the social
and economic systems. Su and Wright (2012) found that the HRM system which has been
widely applied in Chinese firms is still focusing on the basic HRM practices which have
proved to be more effective than other practices, such as the best HRM practices in high-
commitment or high-involvement work systems. Thus, we expect that:
Hypothesis 3a: A partner, who often places greater emphasis on communicating and
marketing key HR initiatives to help line managers maximize
employees’ performance potential, is more positively correlated to
HRM effectiveness than a consultant, who spends most of their time and
energy on operational issues and helping the organisation improve its
operating efficiency.
Typically, the roles in the people-related domain have been placed at the top of the
agenda of HR professionals because employees are always important constituencies of the
HR function. The talent and potential of employees have been considered major value
sources, and the issue of how to fully motivate employees to contribute more to value
creation has drawn significant attention in recent decades. In this case, only attending to
the social needs of employees as a guardian was not enough for HR professionals
to stimulate employees’ morale. Ulrich (1998) proposed that the new role of HR
professionals as an employee champion was beneficial to ensuring employees’
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 17
1117

commitment and thereby making a further contribution to organisations. Then, Ulrich and
Brockbank (2005) subdivided the role of employee champion into employee advocator
and human capital developer. Whatever name is used, a consensus has been reached in
previous studies that the role of HR professionals in effectively motivating employees can
not only enhance positive employee outcomes, but also to a great extent help the enterprise
to improve its performance (Huselid, 1995; Lepak, Takeuchi, & Snell, 2003; Zhang &
Morris, 2014). Scholars interested in Chinese HRM research have come to agree that the
traditional ‘iron-rice-bowl’ HRM system characterised by lifetime employment,
egalitarian pay and ‘cradle-to-grave’ welfare was ineffective to motivate employees
(Su & Wright, 2012; Zhu et al., 2012), which indicates that overemphasis on taking care of
employees’ personal needs as a guardian might result in low efficiency of management
in the Chinese business context. Thus, we assume that:
Hypothesis 3b: A motivator that places greater emphasis on actively listening and
responding to employees and enhancing their morale and commitment
is more positively correlated to HRM effectiveness than a guardian,
who places greater attention on satisfying employees’ personal needs.

Professional identity as a moderator

Professional identity, stemming from social identity theory, refers to the social ‘fact’ that
an individual defines him- or herself in terms of his or her profession (Pratt, Rockmann, &
Kaufmann, 2006). According to social identity theory, people tend to classify themselves
and others into various social categories. A social identity, membership of some social
category, can help them shape their self-perception not only in relation to other group
members but also to non-group members (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Besides, a social
identity leads people to view themselves and others with similar social identity more
positively, but to evaluate non-group members less positively (Jetten, Spears, & Manstead,
1996). Consequently, the professional identity of the subjects (i.e., HR professionals or
non-HR professionals) can be taken as a moderator to reveal the boundary condition in the
relationships between the effectiveness of six roles and overall HRM effectiveness. Thus,
we propose that:
Hypothesis 4: The professional identity of the subjects moderates the relationship
between HR role effectiveness and HRM effectiveness such that HR
professionals are prone to highlight the association of HR role
effectiveness with HRM effectiveness.
As previously mentioned, perceptive differences might exist between HR and non-HR
professionals on HR role expectations and role effectiveness. Considering the contribution
of the effectiveness of all six HR roles to HRM effectiveness, perceptive incongruences
might exist between HR professionals and non-professionals as well, particularly in roles
in the strategy- and operation-related domains. HR academics and professionals always
regard strategic roles as contributing more than other roles to firm performance (Huselid
et al., 1997). Non-HR professionals would like to expect HR professionals to exert more
positive influence on the real business process instead of focusing only on strategic issues
(Wright et al., 2001). Thus, we hypothesise that:
Hypothesis 4a: Comparatively, HR professionals hold a more positive view on the
associations that link the effectiveness of roles in the strategy-related
domain (i.e. facilitator and supporter) to HRM effectiveness.
18
1118 Z. Gao et al.

Hypothesis 4b: Comparatively, Non-HR professionals hold a more positive view of the
associations that link the effectiveness of roles in the operation-related
domain (i.e. consultant and partner) to HRM effectiveness.

Samples and procedure

To test the proposed hypotheses, a survey was designed and distributed to both HR and
non-HR professionals. In total, 211 responses were collected through MBA and EMBA
training programmes from several top Chinese universities in the city of Beijing, with a
distribution of 55.7% HR managers and 44.3% non-HR managers.
Twenty-eight items of the HR MRS generated from the first sub-study were used to
measure the expectations and effectiveness of the HR role. Respondents were asked to
assess the importance of each item, to measure role expectations, and to evaluate the
extent to which they (for HR respondents) and their HR colleagues (for non-HR
respondents) were consistent in the description of each item in terms of the real performance
of HR professionals in their organisations. A five-point response scale was used to rank
role expectations from 1, ‘very unimportant’, to 5, ‘very important’, or to assess role
effectiveness from 1, ‘very incongruent’, to 5, ‘very congruent’. Finally, HRM
effectiveness was measured using ten items adapted from Wright et al. (2001), which
were developed to assess the overall contribution of HRM to organisations. The internal
consistency reliability of this scale was .90 among the HR respondents and .91 among the
line respondents in their research. In this study, respondents were asked to rate their
agreement with 10 statements using a five-point response scale from 1 (Not at All) to 5 (To a
Great Extent). Sample items include ‘The HR department and its people in our company are
performing their job the way I would like it to be performed’ and ‘The HR department and
its people in our company provide me with useful and timely information regarding HR
issues’. In this study, the internal consistency reliability was 0.92.

Analysis and results

First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out using Amos 17.0 to test the
structural validity of the HR roles scale. Then, a paired T test was used to assess the
significance of the differences between role expectations and related role effectiveness.
Finally, a T test was conducted to determine the significance of perceptive incongruences
between HR and non-HR managers on both role expectations and role effectiveness.

Confirmatory factor analysis. Table 3 presents the means, standard deviations and
correlations of all variables. Each role expectation is significantly related to other role
expectations, as is HR effectiveness. To eliminate the potential threats of multi-
collinearity and to testify the discriminate validity, two hypothesised models were
compared using AMOS 17.0 to determine which fits the data better: a six-factor or a
single-factor model. The result of the CFA (see Table 4) shows that each fit index of the
six-factor model arrived at or was close to the recommended value, indicating that the data
support the model. Comparatively, the fit index of neither the single-factor model nor the
null model arrived at or was close to that value. Moreover, the Cronbach’s alpha of each
dimension was calculated using SPSS 16.0 and ranges from 0.73 to 0.87.

Paired T test and T test. A paired T test was conducted to examine the significance of
the differences between HR role expectations and role effectiveness; Table 5 shows
Table 3. Means, standard deviations, and correlations.a
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Facilitator-expectation 3.86 0.74
2. Supporter-expectation 4.39 0.72 0.38***
3. Consultant-expectation 4.24 0.58 0.29*** 0.32***
4. Partner-expectation 4.26 0.58 0.27*** 0.38*** 0.67***
5. Guardian-expectation 3.98 0.65 0.15* 0.17* 0.38*** 0.43***
6. Motivator-expectation 4.18 0.62 0.26 *** 0.35*** 0.55*** 0.47*** 0.49***
7. Facilitator-effectiveness 2.76 0.95 0.09 20.15* 20.07 20.13 20.02 20.07
8. Supporter-effectiveness 3.59 0.76 0.04 0.34*** 0.05 0.11 20.04 0.11 0.36***
9. Consultant-effectiveness 3.32 0.70 20.06 20.03 0.11 0.15* 0.01 0.01 0.49*** 0.42***
10. Partner-effectiveness 3.30 0.72 20.08 0.04 0.11 0.27*** 0.16 0.09 0.40*** 0.42*** 0.62***
11. Guardian-effectiveness 2.94 0.82 20.21** 20.19** 20.12 20.03 0.11 20.05 0.30*** 0.21** 0.44*** 0.62***
12. Motivator-effectiveness 3.09 0.89 20.14* 20.15* 20.01 0.06 0.09 0.10 0.41*** 0.26*** 0.47*** 0.61*** 0.67***
13. HRM effectiveness 3.13 0.73 20.13 20.10 0.03 0.10 20.04 0.02 0.44*** 0.35*** 0.58*** 0.60*** 0.53*** 0.57***
a
n ¼ 211, and *p , 0.05; **p , 0.01; ***p , 0.001.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
19
1119
20
1120 Z. Gao et al.

Table 4. Results of CFAa.

Model x2/ df GFI NFI IFI TLI CFI RMSEA

Null model 8.35
One-factor model 4.22 0.58 0.53 0.59 0.56 0.59 0.12
Six-factor model 2.01 0.86 0.82 0.90 0.88 0.90 0.07
a
n ¼ 211, fit index, like GFI, NFI, IFI, TLI, and CFI, arrive at or are near the recommended value 0.90 (indicates
a good fit), RMSEA is 0.07 (indicates acceptable fit), and x2/df ratio is 2.01 (less than 3 and indicates a good fit).

Table 5. Discrepancies between role expectations and related effectivenessa.

Paired
Expectations Effectiveness differences
Variables Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD T
1. Facilitator 3.86 0.74 2.76 0.95 1.11 1.15 13.76***
2. Supporter 4.39 0.72 3.59 0.76 0.80 0.86 13.44***
3. Consultant 4.24 0.58 3.32 0.70 0.92 0.87 15.21***
4. Partner 4.26 0.58 3.30 0.72 0.96 0.79 17.36***
5. Guardian 3.98 0.65 2.94 0.82 1.05 0.98 15.22***
6. Motivator 4.18 0.62 3.09 0.89 1.09 1.04 15.06***
a
n ¼ 211 and ***p , 0.001.

the results. First, a discrepancy between expectations and effectiveness of each role
demonstrates significance. Additionally, scores on all role expectations are significantly
higher than scores on the respective role effectiveness, thus confirming hypothesis 1. With
respect to role expectations, the highest score is for supporter and the lowest is for
facilitator. Scores on the effectiveness of all six roles have a similar distribution to role
expectations. Regarding the paired differences between expectations and the related
effectiveness of all six roles, the most significant difference exists between the expectation
and effectiveness of partner (T ¼ 17.36, p , 0.001), suggesting that Chinese HR
professionals need to pay more attention to collaborating with people from other non-HR
departments to better achieve HRM effectiveness. In general, greater significance is also
observed in the roles from the operation and people-related domains than from the
strategy-related domain, thus supporting hypothesis 1a. Additionally, with respect to the
roles in the strategy-related domain, supporter gains higher expectations and effectiveness
scores than facilitator, thus confirming hypothesis 1b.
To test the perceptive differences between HR and non-HR individuals on both role
expectations and the respective effectiveness of these roles from a multiple-constituency
perspective, independent-sample T tests were conducted using SPSS 16.0; Table 6
presents the results. A comparison of the ratings from HR and non-HR individuals on each
role expectation and the related role effectiveness determined that not all perspective
differences are significant; similarly, not all evaluations of HR professionals are higher
than those of non-HR professionals. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is not fully supported.
Specifically, HR individuals were revealed to provide significantly higher scores on two
role expectations in the strategy-related domain – facilitator and supporter (T values are
2.09 and 2.88, respectively) – than non-HR individuals, but rated slightly lower scores on
some role expectations in the operation and people-related domains – consultant and
guardian – without statistical significance. Therefore, hypothesis 2a is confirmed. In terms
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 21
1121

Table 6. Perceptive differences between HR and non-HR peoplea.

Expectations Effectiveness
HR Non-HR HR Non-HR
(n ¼ 114) (n ¼ 97) (n ¼ 108) (n ¼ 97)
Variables Mean SD Mean SD T Mean SD Mean SD T
1. Facilitator 3.96 0.73 3.75 0.73 2.09* 2.88 0.99 2.63 0.90 1.90
2. Supporter 4.53 0.56 4.23 0.85 2.88** 3.76 0.68 3.40 0.80 3.48**
3. Consultant 4.23 0.56 4.25 0.62 2 0.27 3.43 0.68 3.20 0.71 2.35*
4. Partner 4.28 0.6 4.24 0.55 0.43 3.47 0.72 3.11 0.67 3.70***
5. Guardian 3.91 0.64 4.06 0.65 2 1.69 3.15 0.76 2.71 0.82 4.01***
6. Motivator 4.21 0.65 4.14 0.58 0.78 3.27 0.88 2.89 0.85 3.16**
a
*p , 0.05, **p , 0.01, and ***p , 0.001.

of the ratings on role effectiveness, HR professionals were observed to give significantly

higher scores on the effectiveness of five roles – supporter, consultant, partner, guardian
and motivator (T values are 3.48, 2.35, 3.70, 4.01 and 3.16) – but not for facilitator. Thus,
hypothesis 2b is not fully supported. Moreover, the results also show that the perceptive
differences in the effectiveness of roles in the operation and people-related domain are all
significant but not the same as for roles in the strategy-related domain, and no significant
perceptive difference exists for the role effectiveness of facilitator.

Hierarchical regression analysis. The relationship between HR role effectiveness and

HRM effectiveness, and the moderating effect of professional identity were tested using
hierarchical regression analysis (HRA). First, demographical variables (i.e., sex, age and
position) were entered into the regression to control their influences on HRM effectiveness
in model 1. Then, the independent variables – the effectiveness of six HR roles – were
entered into the regression to test the main effects on HRM effectiveness in model 2. Next,
the moderator – professional identity of the subject – was entered into the regression to
test the main effect on HRM effectiveness in model 3. Finally, the interactions of the
moderator with the effectiveness of six HR roles, the products of professional identity and
each role effectiveness independently after decentralising were entered to determine the
moderating effects in model 4 (see Table 7). The results show that demographical
variables have no significant influence on HRM effectiveness in model 1, but each
effectiveness of the three roles of consultant (b ¼ 0.22, p , 0.01), partner (b ¼ 0.22,
p , 0.01) and motivator (b ¼ 0.22, p , 0.01) demonstrates a significant influence on
HRM effectiveness in model 2. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is partially supported. Moreover,
the effects of all the roles in the operation-related domain (i.e., consultant and partner) on
HRM effectiveness are both significant, thus not supporting hypothesis 3a. As for the roles
in the people-related domain, only motivator has a significant influence on HRM
effectiveness, thus confirming hypothesis 3b.
The moderator – professional identity of the subject (b ¼ 0.15, p , 0.01) – has a
significant effect on HRM effectiveness in model 3. The two interactions of the products of
professional identity with supporter (b ¼ 0.23, p , 0.01) and partner (b ¼ – 0.31,
p , 0.01) have significant independent effects on HRM effectiveness in model 4, thus
partially confirming hypothesis 4. Figure 1 depicts the moderation effects. As is seen, HR
and non-HR individuals hold distinct views on the associations of HR role effectiveness on
supporter and partner with HRM effectiveness. HR individuals deem that playing the role
22
1122 Z. Gao et al.

Table 7. Results of HRAa.

HRM effectiveness
Variables
model1 model2 model3 model4
Demographical
Sex 2 0.02 2 0.09 2 0.08 20.13
Age 0.1 0.14* 0.15** 0.1
Position 2 0.1 2 0.07 2 0.02 20.05
Independent
Facilitator 0.11 0.1 0.18*
Supporter 0.03 0.01 20.15*
Consultant 0.22** 0.24** 0.26**
Partner 0.22** 0.20** 0.43***
Guardian 0.12 0.09 0.25*
Motivator 0.22** 0.22** 0.11
Moderator
Professional Identity (PI) 0.15** 0.13*
Interaction
Facilitator £ PI 20.07
Supporter £ PI 0.23**
Consultant £ PI 20.08
Partner £ PI 20.31**
Guardian £ PI 20.18
Motivator £ PI 0.14
F 1.64 24.03*** 23.21*** 18.69***
R2 0.03 0.53 0.55 0.62
DR 2 0.03 0.51*** 0.02** 0.07***
a
n ¼ 211, and *p , 0.05, **p , 0.01, and ***p , 0.001.

of supporter enhances the overall performance of the HRM function, e.g. by focusing on
HR strategies, whereas non-HR individuals have the distinct opinion that paying excessive
attention to strategic roles decreases the real effectiveness of the HRM function (partially
supporting hypothesis 4a). Similarly, most non-HR individuals believe that effectively
playing the role of partner by providing HR initiatives according to the business needs of
other managers is positively associated with HRM effectiveness, whereas HR individuals
do not attach the same level of importance to this positive relationship between the role
effectiveness of partner and HRM effectiveness (partially supporting hypothesis 4b).

Discussion
The role sets of HR professionals in China
Six roles in three different domains have been induced in the first-phase study by adopting
the role-based HRM approach, thus showing some aspects of HRM, including both
similarities and distinctions of HR roles in Chinese and western cultures, which might help
to depict HRM in China. In conclusion, although HR roles have many similarities, such as
the requirement for HR professionals in both Chinese and western contexts to satisfy the
needs of multiple constituencies, some distinctions are apparent and are discussed by
combining the characteristics of HR roles, respectively, from the strategy-related domain
to the people-related domain as follows.
First, the roles of facilitator and supporter in the strategy-related domain were
possibly imported from western HRM fashion in recent decades (Conner & Ulrich, 1996;
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 23
1123

Figure 1. Moderating effect of professional identity on the relationship between HR role

effectiveness and HRM effectiveness. (a) Moderating effect on the relationship between Supporter
and HRM effectiveness. (b) Moderating effect on the relationship between Partner and HRM
effectiveness.

Ulrich et al., 2008; Wright & McMahan, 1992) and are probably more a heritage of
China’s own traditions by reflecting the nature of relationships between HR professionals
and their organisations. The items generated in the Chinese business context to
measure these strategic roles show that the overall view of the firm and the sense of
ownership – in reference to a pertaining relationship with organisations – similar to the
aspiration advocated by Confucianism that ‘regulating the family, ruling the state and the
world’ are embodied in the nature of these two HR roles. Thus, the strategic roles of
HR professionals in the formulation and implementation of business strategies
24
1124 Z. Gao et al.

and the facilitation of change and learning for the future are highlighted in the Chinese
context.
Second, the relationships between HR professionals and other managers, such as
operation manager and marketing manager, are reflected in the roles of consultant or partner
in the operation-related domain. In China, being harmonious with others is a most valued
principle that guides inter-personal or inter-organisational relationships. Thus, achieving a
harmonious state with other parties and creating synergies, joint efforts between HR
professionals and many other parties in organisations, also receives significant attention.
In this sense, HR professionals are naturally expected to cooperate with other managers and
provide necessary and immediate assistance to them to improve the productivity of a
business. In addition, today’s outsourcing trend has transferred much of the conventional
and routine activities to professional corporations which are proficient in specific aspects of
HR practices, such as recruiting, training, healthcare, tax payment and so on. Similarly,
many Chinese HR professionals have been recently and gradually relieved of trivial issues.
They are expected to help other managers to fully unfold their potential, serve their
customers in a specific manner and increase shareholder value in the real business process.
Third, the concept of people orientation, which is deeply ideologically rooted in
Chinese traditional values, has been reflected in the roles of both guardian and motivator
with a heavy emphasis on the relationships between HR professionals and ordinary
employees, that differ from the relationships between managers and employees in the
labour relations management developed in western cultures. Relationships with ordinary
employees reflect some characteristics of the hierarchical order in Chinese society. For
instance, in paternalistic leadership literature, managers are expected to look after the
welfare of their employees, particularly disadvantaged employees, ‘like a father who looks
after his offspring’ (Cheng et al., 2004, p. 92). Further, managers should consider the long-
term development of employees. Thus, as holders of guardian and motivator roles,
Chinese HR professionals need to take care of employees’ rights and interests and fully
motivate their job morale and organisational commitment.

Discrepancies between HR role expectations and effectiveness

The results of the paired T tests in the second-phase study highlight the discrepancies
between HR role expectations and effectiveness. First, higher scores on role expectations
than related effectiveness suggest that HR professionals have not fully satisfied
expectations from the viewpoints of themselves and professionals in other departments,
which is consistent with the actual situation in China. Specifically, higher scores on role
expectations indicate that an increasing number of individuals realise the importance of
HRM, and attach greater expectations of HR professionals within the Chinese business
environment through the continuous enhancement of management in Chinese enterprises
(Zhao, 2009). Comparatively, the effectiveness of each role is relatively lower than
expected, which is consistent with the general reality that the HR profession in China
remains immature, even though it has already entered the integration stage. Consequently,
it can be inferred that many HR individuals lack sufficient KSAs (knowledge, skills and
abilities) to fully meet their constituencies’ expectations and thus have a long way to go.
Moreover, the discrepancies between role expectations and related role effectiveness
could be interpreted as a potential for the continuous improvement of HR professionals
(Wright et al., 2001).
Second, the most significant difference between role expectation and role effectiveness
exists in partner, a role in the operation-related domain, indicating that HR professionals
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 25
1125

should give up their egotistical approach and pay more attention to their part in actual
business rather than ‘discussing stratagems on paper’. This is consistent with the argument
of Ulrich and Beatty (2001). In addition, this major discrepancy reflects the inadequate
role of HR professionals in the business value creation process, which also leads to a
deficiency in playing their strategic roles if they cannot understand the actual business of
their organisations. This argument is also in accordance with the fact that HR professionals
in the Chinese context are often criticised because of their unfamiliarity with the actual
business of their organisations, but pay significant attention to trivial matters which
impede their contribution to a firm’s business.
Third, the highest ratings of both role expectations and role effectiveness on the role of
supporter, whereas the lowest ratings on the role of facilitator. Interestingly, both
supporter and facilitator are roles in the strategy-related domain, reflecting the fact that
perceptions of strategic roles are still controversial and have not yet achieved broad
consensus in the Chinese context. As is seen, supporter and facilitator reveal the different
relationships that HR professionals usually develop with their organisations by taking
account of Chinese environmental factors. Specifically, a supporter often assists in
strategy implementation as an outsider to executives at organisational level. The highest
scores on both the expectation and related effectiveness of the supporter suggest effective
role-playing of HR professionals in realising the business strategies of their organisations,
which generates further expectations and appreciation of their effectiveness as promoted
by most HR scholars (Schuler & Tarique, 2007). However, the lowest scores on both role
expectation and related effectiveness of the facilitator, an inside member in the entire
dynamic management process of a business strategy, also reveal a deficiency in HR
professionals with respect to participating in strategy formulation in the Chinese business
context, as highlighted by some scholars (Zhang et al., 2009), despite its relevance (Dyer,
1983). This deficiency represents the ‘weakest link’ of the human resource management
‘chain’, which provides insights for the further development of HRM. Thus, HR
professionals should have an overall view of the value creating process, particularly as
facilitators, so as to contribute to strategy formulation and business collaborations and not
to focus only on HR issues and discuss stratagems on paper from their own perspectives as
outsiders to the business of their organisations.

Perceptive differences between HR and non-HR individuals

The perceptive differences between HR and non-HR individuals were revealed through
independent-sample T tests in the second-phase study. On the one hand, in terms of role
expectations, significant perceptive differences exist in both strategic roles (i.e. facilitator
and supporter), and HR individuals gave significantly higher scores to the expectations of
these two roles than did non-HR individuals. There are several possible reasons. First,
HRM has been regarded as a function with significant strategic significance to an
organisation’s survival and development; HR professionals are eager to ascend to high-
level management and prove themselves by exerting their influence at the strategic level
through the development and implementation of strategic HRM. Thus, they might feel
better about themselves and tend to give higher scores to their strategic roles. Second,
because the HR profession remains immature in the Chinese context, non-HR individuals
might not realise the strategic value of the HRM function and the HR professionals in their
organisations. In contrast, they may still place greater emphasis on some roles in the
operation and people-related domains, such as consultant and guardian. This inference is
slightly supported by the result that non-HR individuals gave higher scores on the roles of
26
1126 Z. Gao et al.

consultant and guardian than HR individuals, although not significantly. Third, the lack of
open and timely communication between HR and non-HR individuals may also lead to
significant perceptive differences in the expectations of strategic roles. Thus HR
professionals should actively communicate their strategic value and enhance mutual
understanding with their constituencies in organisations.
On the other hand, in terms of role effectiveness, significant perceptive differences
exist for most roles except facilitator, which is consistent with the results from previous
studies conducted in western cultures (Wright et al., 2001; Yusoff et al., 2009). Several
potential explanations exist. First, both HR and non-HR realise that HR professionals fail
to effectively meet multiple role expectations, and significant room exists for future
improvement. Second, the traditional HR/non-HR conflict matters, in that everyone views
things in his or her own way. Line managers seldom regard the HRM function as having as
critical relationship to a firm’s success as a line function, implying that HR professionals
need to do a better job of internally marketing HR activities and demonstrating their
specific contributions (Phelps, 2002; Wright et al., 2001; Yusoff et al., 2009). Third, HR
professionals may exaggerate their effectiveness to some extent for their own professional
benefit, or just to feel better about themselves. However, in terms of the strategy
formulation role of facilitator, both HR and non-HR graded it as low to reflect
dissatisfaction with the performance of this role. That both HR and non-HR professionals
agree in this manner creates an insignificant perceptive difference.

HR role effectiveness and HRM effectiveness

According to the results presented from the HRA, three roles, e.g. consultant, partner and
motivator, have positive significant effects on HRM effectiveness. As for the main effects,
the coefficients of these three roles are approximately equal, indicating that they have
nearly equivalent weighting in explaining overall HRM effectiveness. This result suggests
that greater concentration by HR professionals on these roles could enhance HRM
effectiveness significantly. Moreover, although apparently positive correlations exist
between the effectiveness of HR roles in the strategy-related domain (i.e. facilitator and
supporter) and overall HRM effectiveness (see Table 3), HRA model 2 suggests an
underestimated perception of the contribution of strategic roles to overall HRM
effectiveness compared with the significant effects of operation and people-related roles.
Hence, HR professionals need to make greater efforts in these strategic roles to gain broad
recognition in consideration of their importance for the future development of the
profession.
According to the results from model 4, the coefficients of the product terms
demonstrate significant moderating effects of professional identity on the relationships
between role effectiveness of both supporter and partner roles and overall HRM
effectiveness. Specifically, with reference to the effects displayed by Figure 1, the
moderation effect of professional identity on the relationship between supporter and HRM
effectiveness reveals that HR professionals believe that the effectiveness of a supporter is
positively associated with HRM effectiveness, but non-HR professionals perceive a
negative relationship between the effectiveness of a supporter and HRM effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the moderation effect of professional identity on the relationship between
partner and HRM effectiveness indicates that HR professionals do not perceive any
significant correlation between the role effectiveness of partner and HRM effectiveness,
whereas non-HR professionals believe that the role effectiveness of partner is positively
associated with HRM effectiveness. These results provide a deeper verification of the
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 27
1127

perceptive conflicts between HR and non-HR professionals on the roles of both supporter
and partner. Specifically, HR professionals’ contribution to overall HRM effectiveness as
strategic supporters, of which they are often proud, is probably deprecated by their
constituencies. Interestingly, their contribution as operational partners – usually neglected
by HR professionals – is highly appreciated by non-HR professionals. Therefore, greater
communication between HR and non-HR professionals is needed to promote inter-
departmental understanding. Moreover, non-HR professionals’ deprecation of the
effectiveness of supporter – a strategic HR role – might be the result of their deficiency
in evaluating HR’s contribution by taking a more comprehensive view. Thus, the
performance of strategic roles should be assessed by constituencies at higher levels of the
management team who are supposed to hold an overall and impartial view regarding
the contribution of HRM departments and HR professionals.

Conclusions
Theoretical contributions
This article makes several theoretical contributions to strategic HRM literatures through
validating the multiple roles of HR professionals in the Chinese business context,
revealing the discrepancies between HR role expectations and the related role
effectiveness and perceptive differences between HR and non-HR professionals, and
examining the predictive effects of HR roles on overall HRM effectiveness.
First, the role-based HRM approach employed in some studies by taking western
culture as the main research site (Mamman & Al Kulaiby, 2014; e.g. Ulrich, 1998; Ulrich
& Brockbank, 2005; Ulrich et al., 2008), has been extended into the Chinese business
context in this study to help scholars get a deeper understanding on the role sets of the HR
professional in China. At present, the majority of studies focused on the HR function in
China have paid attention to figuring out the structure of HRM practices employed in
Chinese enterprises. For instance, Zhou et al. (2012) revealed a pluralistic structure
encompassing indigenous practices. Su and Wright (2012) identified a ‘hybrid system’
consisting of both commitment and control HR practices. However, the essential role gap
between the expectation and effectiveness of HR supporting the functionality of these
HRM practices and systems has often been neglected. As indicated by Zheng and Lamond
(2009), a better understanding of HR roles, the major targets of the role-based HRM
approach, is helpful in explaining why some HRM techniques are much more popular in
China than in the West. Thus, the identification of six specific roles in three domains that
HR professionals play in the Chinese business context is a key contribution of this study.
Based on the role sets obtained in the study, we further developed a measure with high
reliability and discriminant validity for future studies.
Second, we enriched the studies based on the role-based HRM approach by combining
HR professionals’ role expectations and related role effectiveness. Although previous
studies have specified various HR roles that describe the expectations of HR professionals
from their constituencies so as to justify their existence (e.g. Ulrich, 1996; Wright et al.,
2001; Zhang et al., 2009), the extent to which HR professionals fulfil these expectations
was seldom evaluated. Thus, we proposed role effectiveness as the criterion to judge the
fulfilment of HR professionals’ role expectations, and the results obtained in this study
show that the effectiveness of each role is relatively lower than expected, indicating that
Chinese HR professionals have a long way to go. Moreover, our results reveal that the
most significant difference between role expectation and role effectiveness exists in the
role of partner, indicating that HR professionals should positively communicate and
28
1128 Z. Gao et al.

market key HR initiatives to their constituents at the operational level. In other words, to
be effective partners, HR professionals should pay more attention to their part in the real
value creating process rather than focusing only on HR issues from the perspective of their
own profession. This conclusion is consistent with the opinion of Uen and his colleagues
Uen et al. (2012), who also highlighted the positive role of HR professionals in value
creation in organisations.
Third, the perceptive differences between HR managers and non-HR managers have
attracted much attention in previous studies adopting the role-based HRM approach (e.g.
Wright et al., 2001; Yusoff et al., 2009). To deepen our understanding of the cognitive
gaps between HR and non-HR professionals, we examined the perceptive differences
regarding HR role expectations and the related role effectiveness. Our results reveal that
significant differences exist in the role expectations of facilitator and supporter, and that
HR professionals overemphasise strategic roles, probably indicating that they should
reconsider their attention allocation and communicate with their constituencies to obtain a
full understanding of those role expectations. In addition, significant differences exist in
the effectiveness of most roles except for facilitator, which generally suggests that HR
professionals should play their part according to the expectations placed on them, and
market their services to those constituencies. These findings not only enrich the literatures
on perceptive differences, but can also have practical implications for further cross-
functional communication between HR and non-HR professionals.
Fourth, we distinguished the contribution of each role to HRM effectiveness by
recognising the relationships between the effectiveness of HR roles and overall HRM
effectiveness. Although the effectiveness of the Chinese firm’s HRM practices has been
frequently examined in previous studies (e.g. Su & Wright, 2012; Zhang & Morris, 2014;
Zhou et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2013), less attention has been paid to the contributions of
multiple HR roles to HRM effectiveness. Our results obtained in this study indicate that
the effectiveness of three HR roles – consultant, partner and motivator – have positive
and significant effects on HRM effectiveness, indicating that a greater concentration of
HR professionals on these roles would lead to higher overall HRM effectiveness.
Additionally, we determined the moderating effects of professional identity on the
associations linking the effectiveness of six roles to HRM effectiveness, and our results
demonstrate that professional identity moderates the relationships between the role
effectiveness of both supporter and partner and overall HRM effectiveness, further
providing detailed evidence of perceptive differences between HR managers and non-HR
managers.

Limitations and future research directions

Although the study was intended to be performed using rigorous combined qualitative and
quantitative methodologies, it was not without limitations.
First, although factorial validity was tested, the study did not consider predicative and
criterion validity. Because a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, which indicates a positive
relationship between expectations and performance, has attracted many scholars’ attention
(Lindsley, Brass, & Thomas, 1995), testing whether HR role expectations have a positive
effect on HR professionals’ performance is important and meaningful for future studies.
Second, although we revealed the relationship between HR role effectiveness and
HRM effectiveness, we did not point out the roles with the greatest significance with
respect to firm performance. However, many studies have examined the relationships
between strategic HRM practices and firm performance (Akhtar, Ding, & Ge, 2008;
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1129
29

Arthur, 1994; Becker & Gerhart, 1996; Björkman & Xiucheng, 2002; Delaney & Huselid,
1996; Huselid, 1995). Therefore, future research should test the relationships between
different HR roles and firm performance.
Third, the data on both HR role expectations and related effectiveness were collected
at the same time. Although it was convenient for respondents to compare the importance
and the congruence with reality of each item, this data collection method led to a certain
degree of common method variance. Thus, a longitudinal study design should be adopted
and data from paired professionals within the same organisation should be collected in the
future to improve the study. Similarly, as suggested previously, the strategic roles of HR
professionals need to be assessed by members from higher-level management teams
who have more knowledge about the strategic performance and contribution of HR
professionals.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to two anonymous reviewers who have
constructively commented on and provided suggestions for the development of the earlier version of
the manuscript.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number
71302170], [grant number 71302119], [grant number 71121001], [grant number 71172178]; MOE
(Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number
13YJC630036]; and Beijing Municipal Foundation for Talents Development [grant number
2013D005019000002].

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