Managing institutionalization: Means-ends decoupling in human resource practices

Abstract

Although various firms adopt and implement multiple human resource practices as best practices (means), a substantial number of firms fail to realize their objectives (ends). The practices of firms are frequently decoupled from their intended outcomes. By leveraging the concept of means-ends decoupling, which refers to the gap between practices and outcomes, our research examines this important but underexplored phenomenon, which the traditional concept of policy-practice decoupling fails to fully account for. Hence, organizational agency is both conceptualized and measured as consistency and competence. The manner in which this variable affects the implementation and performance of human resource practices is tested with the effect of means-ends decoupling on firm performance. Our results add new evidence that organizational agency has an important role in the process of implementing practices and that it provides additional insights into the relationships between adoption and implementation, which are two distinct institutional dimensions of practices, as well as their different firm consequences.