These studies have supported the positive effects of commitment HR
practices on employees’ attitudes such as commitment and trust, but the links
from the company HR practices to these attitudes have largely remained a
black box. The current research attempts to examine the construct of
employees’ overall perception as one of the possible mechanisms by which
the commitment HR bundle influences employees’ attitudes. Overall perception
indicates an employee’s belief about a company’s diverse HR practices.
As early as the 1960s, Fishbein (1963) explained that an individual’s overall
attitude would be shaped by their diverse beliefs about the object in a
summative way. The model has been widely utilized in explaining customer
behaviors (Fishbein, 1963; Gardner, 1985; Ryan & Bonfield, 1980). Applied
to explain employee attitudes at the workplace, the model suggests that an
employee’s overall perception can be represented by beliefs about diverse HR
practices in a summative way. The overall perception of employees seems to
be a very important factor in understanding their behaviors at the workplace
because they are exposed to diverse HR practices rather than exclusively to
a single practice.