Scholars are directing more attention to employee perceptions of human resources (HR) practices and have explored issues such as whether and how employees’ idiosyncratic or collective perceptions of HR practices shape employee outcomes. To further this area of research, we seek to determine what authors mean when they refer to “employee perceptions of HR practices”. We review 105 articles from leading human resource management journals and find that employee perceptions of HR practices is not a monolithic concept. Rather, following previous scholars, we identify three distinct components of employee perceptions of HR practices: the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’. We critically summarize extant literature on these three components of employee HR perception and propose future research directions, including enriching the theoretical foundations of HR communication, embracing cross-national contexts, and enhancing practical relevance.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer insights regarding the consequences of relationship conflict among employees in terms of their task performance, contextual performance and turnover intentions. Utilizing a resource depletion approach in the backdrop of Conservation of Resources theory, it is hypothesized that the three-dimension burnout (exhaustion, cynicism and interpersonal strain) play a mediating role in influencing the linkages between relationship conflict and outcomes.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 306 telecom engineers and their supervisors and analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the interrelationships among the study constructs.Findings: Results indicated that relationship conflict is negatively related to task performance and contextual performance and positively relates to turnover intentions, and that the three dimensions of job burnout, i.e. exhaustion, cynicism and interpersonal strain at work, distinctively mediate the linkages between relationship conflict, task and contextual performance and turnover intentions.Originality/value: This study explores how relationship conflict transmits its effect to job performance and turnover intentions through mediation of burnout. All in all, the findings have important practical as well as theoretical implications for managers and academicians alike.