Work engagement is a desirable attribute of employees that organisations must attempt to foster and enhance. Engaged employees are focused and fully immersed in their tasks, resilient to high levels of job demands, and experience a sense of pride and meaningfulness within their work. Therefore, it is important that organisations understand the mechanisms that enhance work engagement, particularly whether and how its HRM systems contribute to levels of engagement. The present study examined the contributions of HRM systems to engagement. Furthermore, although organisations implement HRM systems with the purpose of increasing the performance of their workforce, empirical evidence supporting the relationship between HRM systems and organisational performance is scarce, therefore this is also a focus of this study. Additionally, organisational culture will be investigated as the social context that enhances engagement and performance beyond the effects of existing HRM systems. Hence, this study explored the role of HRM systems and organisational culture on employee engagement and perceived organisational performance. Ninety-seven Thai employees from various organisations completed an internet- based survey. Results from multiple regressions suggest that engagement can be maintained or enhanced to the extent that employees are offered responsibility in the organisation and participate less in job training, and that the organisational culture is one that focuses on flexibility, individualism, entrepreneurship, and innovativeness. Moreover, the findings show a positive association between organisational performance and opportunities for advancement, job security, and competitive and goal oriented organisational culture. The limitations and implications of this study were addressed, along with recommendations for future research.

Foreign labors are important to Taiwan¡¦s manufacturing industries as most of them are taking 3D (Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult) jobs or night shifts. Previous researches have put attention on the influences of human resource management (HRM) practices on foreign labors¡¦ adaptability or job performance. There is comparatively lesser researches focus on the mediating and moderating variables between foreigner labors¡¦ HRM practices and their performance. Based on the framework of hierarchical HRM, this study aims to explore the mediating effect of foreign worker readiness and the moderating effect of agent involvement on the relationship between foreign labor HRM practices and their job performance. Due to lack of empirical researches related to agent¡¦s involvement, hence this study first applied to qualitative research method to explore the construct and create the measurement and then used quantitative research method to examine the hypotheses. According to the data from Kaohsiung city manufacturing enterprises (total 50 sets of samples; including 50 HR heads and 373 foreign workers), the results revealed that: 1. The relationship between HRM practices and foreign labors¡¦ job performance. (1) Training & education practices are positively related to foreign labors¡¦ job performance. (2) Incentive practices are positively related to foreign labors¡¦ job performance. (3) Accommodation management practices are positively related to foreign labors¡¦ job performance. 2. The relationship among HRM practices, foreign labor¡¦s readiness and job performance. (1) Recruitment and selection management practices are positively related to foreign labors¡¦ job readiness. (2) Foreign labors¡¦ job readiness is positively related to their job readiness. (3) Recruitment and selection management practices are positively related to foreign labors¡¦ job performance through their job readiness. 3. The relationship among agent involvement, foreign labor¡¦s HRM practices, foreign labor¡¦s readiness and job performance. (1) Agent involvement positively moderates the relationships between training & education management practices and foreign labors¡¦ job performance. (2) Agent involvement positively moderates the relationships between incentive practices and foreign labors¡¦ job performance Base on these findings, we suggests that practitioners should improve the oversea recruitment and selection practices for promoting foreign labors¡¦ readiness and ensuring their job performance. Practitioners can also strengthen the magnitude of education & training, incentives and accommodation management to promote foreign labors¡¦ performance. For enhancing the management effectiveness, practitioners should work closely with the agent in education & training and incentive practices. For the future researches, we suggest that longitudinal research design could further inspect the causal-effect relationship between HRM practices and performance. Furthermore, researches can also expand the sources of data to enhance the generalizability of the results.

I Sverige pågår en förändring av pensionssystemet där pensionsåldern fortsatt förväntas att höjas. Samtidigt har demografiska förändringar med en åldrande befolkning medfört en ökad arbetsbelastning på vård och omsorgssektorn, inte minst äldrevården. Detta har skapat ett växande behov av att bibehålla äldre arbetskraft och värna om kompetensförsörjningen inom yrket. För att möta denna omställning behöver personalchefer inom vård och omsorgssektorn använda HRM- praxis som ett led i att arbeta hållbart och nå ett förlängt arbetsliv, för äldre arbetskraft. Studien har haft för avsikt att undersöka vård och äldreomsorgens personalfunktion och linjechefers (personalchefers) perspektiv på hållbart arbete, genom att söka svar på forskningsfrågorna: 1.) Vilka perspektiv har personalchefer på möjligheter och utmaningar gällande demografiska förändringar i åldrandet, samt på ett förlängt arbetsliv? 2.) Vilka perspektiv har personalchefer angående arbetet med policy och HRM-praxis, för att hantera bristen på mänskliga resurser, samt för att bevara betydelsefull kompetens och äldre arbetskraft inom vård och omsorgssektorn? Data från nio respondenter med personalansvar utgjorda av semistrukturerade intervjuer, analyserades genom tematisk analys. Resultatet visade i korthet att personalchefer beskrev utmaningar med en växande äldre befolkningsandel och med förhöjd pensionsålder. Samtidigt framhölls möjligheten att nyttja äldre arbetskraft längre i yrkeslivet. Vidare beskrevs brister i användandet av HRM-praxis, där individ/ålderspecifika HRM-praxis uttrycktes vara extra utmanande. Dock påtalades att vissa delar av HRM-praxis hade nyttjats, så som att tillmötesgå äldre medarbetare med fysiska hjälpmedel, samt viss kompetensutveckling och möjlighet att reducera tjänstegrad. Samtidigt framkom utmaningar med kompetensförsörjning, psykosociala hjälpmedel och möjligheter till bilateralt nyttjande att arbetskraft. Även om dessa fynd inte går att generalisera kan resultatet innebära viktiga insikter för såväl användandet av HRM-praxis inom vård och äldre omsorgen samt vidare forskning. / In Sweden, a change is taking place in the pension system where the retirement age is still expected raise. At the same time, demographic changes with an aging population have led to an increased workload in the health- and welfare sector, especially within elderly care. This has created a growing need to retain older workers and safeguard the supply of skills in the profession. To meet this change, HR managers in the health care sector need to use HRM practice, as part of working sustainably and achieving an extended working life for older workers. This study aimed to examine the line managers (HR managers) perspectives on sustainable work within the elderly care sector, by seeking answers to research questions: 1.) What perspectives do HR managers have on opportunities and challenges regarding demographic changes in aging, and on extended working life? 2.) What are the perspectives of HR managers regarding the work with policy and HRM practice, to deal with the lack of human resources, and to preserve significant skills and older workforce in the health care sector? Data from nine respondents with personnel responsibilities, consisting of semi-structured interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results showed in short that HR managers described challenges with a growing older population and with an increased retirement age. Nevertheless, the possibility of using older labor longer in working life was emphasized. Furthermore, shortcomings in the use of HRM practices were described, where individual / age-specific HRM practices were expressed to be extra challenging. However, it was pointed out that certain parts of HRM practice had been used, such as accommodating older employees with physical aids, as well as some competence development, and the opportunity to reduce the degree of working hours. At the same time, challenges arose with the supply of skills, psychosocial aids and opportunities for bilateral use of labor. Although these findings cannot be generalized, the results may provide important insights for both the use of HRM practice in care and elderly care as well as further research.