HR actors’ responses to institutional contradictions: a systematic review

Human resource management literature has increasingly focused on institutional complexity and action. We conducted a systematic review of HR actors' responses to institutional contradictions, which contained two questions: the first question identifies what institutional contradictions HR actors face and the second question reviewed HR actors' responses to these contradictions. We identified 52 articles for analysis after the screening. First, an overview of the theoretical lens, contexts, and dimensions of action in selected articles was presented. Then institutional contradictions including institutional pressures and conflict were reviewed and presented. Also, the types of actions were extracted and categorized from the articles. We presented a typology of four types of actions including (A) proactive legitimacy actions (institutional work, institutional entrepreneurship, and deinstitutionalization), (B) proactive institutional practices (combining logic, aligning interpretations, logic customization, and structural actions), (C) reactive institutional practices (use of logic, reducing tension, reconciliation and rejecting) and (D) reactive legitimacy actions (localization, adaptation, compliance, and institutional fit). This typology has two aspects: the type of actors' exposure to contradiction (proactive and reactive) and the direction of action (The Impact on the institutional context and conversely). Also, the epistemological distinctions of these four types of actions, the time and theoretical trends of the emergence of these actions in research, and the relevant conceptual framework were presented. Finally, directions for future research, discussion, and conclusions were described.