Abstract:
The central concept in this study is people management,
referring to line managers’ implementation of HR practices
and their leadership behaviour oriented at supporting
the employees they supervise at work. In this study
we conceptualize people management and develop a
multidimensional scale to measure it from the perspectives
of both employees and line managers. Using a Study 1/
Study 2 design, including two-wave multilevel data from
employees and line managers of a financial service provider,
and cross-sectional data from teachers, educational support
staff, and supervisors, we demonstrate the scale’s reliability
and multidimensionality across samples and over time. We
provide evidence of the convergent validity by showing
that employees’ and line managers’ perceptions of people
management are significantly related, and that people
management is significantly related to transformational and
transactional leadership. Also, we demonstrate that people
management adds explained variance above and beyond
transformational and transactional leadership in predicting
team performance. We demonstrate criterion-related
validity through people management’s relationship with job
satisfaction, commitment, and work engagement. We discuss
the implications of our measure for theory and research on
people management, its antecedents, and its effects
