This study is designed to contribute both theoretically and empirically to the literature by
examining the impact of HPWS on happiness- and health-related outcomes via the two types
of HR attributions. Specifically, the first novelty of this study is that we examine the mediating
role of HR attributions in the relationship between HPWS and employee outcomes in the
context of (HRM-specific) attribution theories (Kelley, 1967; Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). Even
though HRM scholars have suggested that HPWS have an influence on employee outcomes via
employee interpretations of HRM (e.g. Nishii and Wright, 2008), there is still a limited
understanding of how employees attribute meanings to HPWS and how these meanings shape
employees’ outcomes. In particular, the HR attribution pathway has – to our knowledge – not
yet been examined in empirical research. Second, this study explicitly distinguishes two
conflicting perspectives (i.e. mainstream optimistic perspective and the critical pessimistic
perspective) on the effects of HPWS on happiness- and health-related outcomes. Previous
research has tended to investigate the former perspective, while the latter perspective and the
integration of both perspectives has received little attention in the extant literature (Peccei et al.,
2013).