Optimizing human resource strategies: Investigating the dynamics of high-performance practices, psychological empowerment, and responsible leadership in a moderated-mediation framework

Even though existing literature frequently finds High Performance Human Resource Practices' (HPHRPs) positive impact on job performance in organizational setting, still it remains short to study unexplored underlying methods by which High Performance Human Resource Practices (HPHRPs) affect employee job performance. This gap is filled by our research, which proposes psychological empowerment as a mediator in the aforementioned relationship. Based on signaling theory, the present study examines the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PE) in the relationship between high-performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) and job performance (JP). In addition, this study tests the interactive effect of HPHRPs and responsible leadership on psychological empowerment. Data were collected in three waves from representative sample of education sector employees and their supervisors (T1-557, T2-342, T3-210 responses) in Pakistan. The hypotheses were evaluated using the PROCESS macro with SPSS to measure moderated-mediated relationships. The findings of the study reveal that HPHRPs positively influence employee performance through psychological empowerment. Responsible leadership positively moderates HPHRPs' effects on psychological empowerment. Furthermore, responsible leadership moderates the mediated relationship such that this positive indirect effect is stronger for individuals possessing low levels of responsible leadership. Our study is the first of its type to investigate whether a responsible leader may moderate the indirect impact of HPHRPs on JP through psychological empowerment. The findings carry critical implications for the practitioners and academics to devise interventions for better work environments.