ORIGINAL ARTICLE Human resource practices and migrant workers' turnover intentions: The roles of post‐migration place identity and justice perceptions Hongyu Zhang 1 | Xiaobei Li 2 | Stephen J. Frenkel 3 | Jianjun Zhang 4 1 CUFE Business School, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China 2 Graduate School of China, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea 3 School of Management, UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 4 Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China Correspondence Xiaobei Li, GSC office, International Building, 25‐2, Sungkyunkwan‐Ro, Jongno‐gu, Seoul 03063, South Korea. Email: xiaobeili99@163.com Funding information National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 71502061, 71502186 and 71572003; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China, Grant/Award Number: QL18011; Program for Innovation Research in Central University of Finance and Economics Abstract This study adopts an identity perspective to explore the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and turnover intentions among migrant workers. Informed by HR attribution theory, we propose that the effects of HR practices will be more effective in reducing turnover among migrant workers when these workers have stronger post‐migration place identities and when they experience a sense of justice regarding their work and nonwork envi- ronments. Using a three‐way interaction model, we tested these ideas on a sample composed of 1,985 migrant workers in 141 firms in China. The results support the theoretical model. KEYWORDS HR practices, justice perceptions, migrant workers, post‐migration place identity, turnover intention 1 | INTRODUCTION Migrant workers are those who move away from their place of residence in order to find work. They comprise an important part of the global workforce (Choi, Kim, & McGinley, 2017), accounting for approximately 190.9 million people in 2017 (United Nations, 2017). A major challenge for organisations employing migrant workers is their high turnover rate (Morris, Wilkinson, & Gamble, 2009), which exceeds that of local workers by 30% or more in some areas (Halvorsen, Treuren, & Kulik, 2015). Favourable sets of human resource (HR) practices—commonly referred to as a high‐performance work system— designed to improve workers' ability, motivation, and opportunities for participation, have been shown to improve employee retention (e.g., Jiang, Lepak, Hu, & Baer, 2012; Sun, Aryee, & Law, 2007). However, these HR systems may have a limited impact on migrant workers because they do not necessarily share the same values and interests as local workers (Eggerth & Flynn, 2012). This view is consistent with the increasing emphasis in the Strategic Human Received: 24 October 2017 Revised: 30 October 2018 Accepted: 6 November 2018 DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12223 Hum Resour Manag J. 2018;1–16. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 1