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Introduction
The escalating tension in doctor-patient relationships (DPR) is a burning issue in China’s public healthcare and has been receiving increasing attention. From 2003 to 2013, 101 medical violence events have been reported in China, including 23 cases that resulted in the death of 24 healthcare professionals (Pan et al., 2015). Poor investment in hospitals from government, flawed healthcare system, marketization reform of healthcare, distrust between patients and doctors, media’s sensationalism, and the unethical conduct of medical staff are considered the major factors leading to the issue (Cooke and Bartram, 2015; He, 2014; Hu and Zhang, 2015). Given the complexity of the public healthcare sector, there is no easy answer for turning around the situation and building a harmonious DPR in China, but there has been an increasing attention in applying human resource management (HRM) to effectively manage the workforce in this sector (e.g. Baluch et al., 2013; Leggat et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2013). There is also a growing evidence from China that investing in the management of human resource (HR) in the healthcare industry is an important tool for improving employee well-being and delivering high-quality patient care (Fan et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2015).
HRM practices can be classified as “control” or “commitment” practices (Arthur, 1994; Walton, 1985; Wood and De Menezes, 1998). The literature suggests that commitment-based HR practices motivate employees to contribute with higher levels of discretionary behaviors by aligning their self-interests with those of the organizations (Collins and Smith, 2006). Some empirical research suggests that commitment HR practices affect firm performance by creating positive employee attitudes (e.g. Kehoe and Wright, 2013). However, little has been discussed on the relationship between commitment HR practices and DPR so far (Leggat et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2015) and, as Hu and Zhang (2015, p. 1651) argued, “with China’s current sociopolitical backdrop, reforming the health system is a complex and difficult task with insecure effect”, we believe that there is a need to understand how commitment HR practices affect healthcare professionals’ job satisfaction that may ultimately influence DPR. Our first objective was then to develop and test theory on how commitment HR practices affect hospital professionals’ job satisfaction that may motivate them to...