Human resource practices in Chinese construction organizations: development of a measurement scale

Abstract

During the economic transformation to a market-based socialist economy, Chinese construction organizations have developed advanced technologies. However, soft management is recognized as the bottleneck constraining them in competing in the international market. There are extensive studies of human resource (HR) management in Western countries. HR Management in Chinese construction organizations merits investigation. A HR practices measurement scale is required to understand whether and how HR management contributes to organizations' performance. This paper develops such a measurement scale. An initial scale, developed from previous research, is adapted following consultation with academic researchers and industry experts. Data is collected by a questionnaire survey. After confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses, the second-order HR practices measurement scale has desirable model-to-data fit, which demonstrates that the observed items are reasonable measures of the respective HR practices. A 15-item measurement scale of HR practices is developed, which comprises the four categories of employment relations - job description and participation, training, staffing, and rewards.