A multilevel examination of high‐performance work systems and unit‐level organisational ambidexterity

This paper examines the process linking high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and organisational ambidexterity both at the unit and firm level of analyses by integrating strategic HRM, human capital and social capital perspectives. Multisource and multilevel data from 2,887 employees and 536 managers of 58 banks was collected. Results revealed that firm‐level HPWS were positively related to unit‐level employee human capital. Unit‐level employee human capital partially mediated the relationship between firm‐level HPWS and unit organisational ambidexterity. Furthermore, firm‐level social climate moderated the effect of firm‐level HPWS on unit organisational ambidexterity through unit‐level employee human capital. This paper contributes to HPWS and ambidexterity research by revealing the impacts of firm‐level HPWS and mediating mechanisms, as well as identifying boundary conditions for pursuing unit‐level organisational ambidexterity.     

Influence of high performance work systems on employee subjective well-being and job burnout: empirical evidence from the Chinese healthcare sector

Over the last two decades, high performance work systems (HPWSs) research has been dominated by examining the effects of these systems on firm performance. Research on the impact of HPWSs on employees has been marginalised. This study examines the impact of HPWSs on two psychological outcomes for employees, namely, subjective well-being (SWB) and workplace burnout, by utilising data collected from 1488 physicians and nurses in 25 Chinese hospitals. It also examines the moderating effects of employees' organisational based self-esteem (OBSE), as an individual intervention and physician–nurse relationships, as an organisational intervention, on the relationship between HPWSs and employee outcomes. HPWS is found to increase employees' SWB and decrease burnout. Such well-being-enhancing and burnout-relieving effects are stronger when employees have high OBSE. The positive effect of HPWS on SWB is also stronger when there is a collaborative relationship among employees in an organisation. The major contribution of this study is to unpack the ‘black box’ of how HPWS influences employee well-being in the Chinese healthcare sector context.     

The roles of tacit knowledge and OCB in the relationship between group‐based pay and firm performance

Researchers have suggested various mechanisms through which group‐based pay may affect firm performance, but few have provided direct empirical field tests of these mechanisms. In this paper, we argue that group‐based pay systems lead to more organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and facilitate the sharing and creation of tacit knowledge among core employees. OCB and tacit knowledge in turn enhance firm performance. Regression results show that group‐based pay is positively related to firm performance and that the relationship is partially mediated by core employees' OCB. We discuss implications for compensation theory and research.     

The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

Collective Dynamics of Citizenship Behaviour: What Group Characteristics Promote Group‐Level Helping?

A basic tenet of research on organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is that OCB aggregated across individuals improves organizational performance. Departing from the typical focus on individual-level OCB, the construct of group-level OCB (GOCB) recently emerged as a critical group function that affects various group effectiveness measures. Despite the clear link between GOCB and team performance, the existing literature provides a limited understanding with regard to the antecedents of GOCB, mostly focusing on leadership variables. Establishing helping behaviour (a core dimension of OCB) as a collective construct, this study substantially expands the antecedents of group-level helping, and empirically tests their effects using three different operationalizations of group-level helping. The results, based on a sample of 96 work units, show that membership diversity in gender and education decreased group-level helping, whereas diversity in tenure increased it. Group-level helping was also positively related to leadership characteristics (supportive unit manager, transformational top management) and perceived competence of unit members. In addition, the analysis further indicated that perceived competence is a positive predictor of group-level helping only when the unit members also believe that others are trustworthy in terms of integrity and benevolent motivation. From a methodological standpoint, the study provides important insights by comparing different ways of operationalizing collective constructs.     

High-performance work systems and organizational performance: testing the mediation role of employee outcomes using evidence from PR China

This research investigates the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational performance, and the mediating effect of employee outcomes. The paper is based on a sample of 168 firms of six ownership types and in various business sectors operating in China. The results of data analysis support the hypotheses. Organizational performance is positively predicted by HPWS and employee outcomes, and employee outcomes positively mediate the relationship between HPWS and organizational performance. This paper supports the theory that HPWS positively impacts organizational performance and explains the mechanisms through which HPWS enhances organizational performance. It also responds to the long-standing call for stressing the importance of employee-related factors in the HRM–performance linkage.     

High‐Performance Work Systems in Professional Service Firms: Examining the Practices‐Resources‐Uses‐Performance Linkage

Professional service firms (PSFs) play an important role in the knowledge‐based economy. Their success is highly dependent on their people, the knowledge resources they possess, and how they use these resources. However, how to systematically manage human resources to attain high performance is not fully understood. This study addresses this issue by investigating the linkage mechanisms through which high‐performance work systems (HPWS) influence the performance of PSFs. We integrate resource‐based and dynamic capability theories in order to identify and investigate two intervening mechanisms that link HR practices to firm performance. The first mechanism is the intellectual capital resources comprising the human, social, and organizational capital that HPWS create. The second mechanism is the uses to which both HPWS and resources can be applied, operationalized as organizational ambidexterity, the simultaneous exploitation of existing knowledge and exploration of new knowledge. These mechanisms are hypothesized to link HPWS to firm performance in the form of a practices‐resources‐uses‐performance linkage model. Results from a longitudinal study of 93 accounting firms support this linkage model. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How Top Management HR Beliefs and Values Affect High‐Performance Work System Adoption and Implementation Effectiveness

What explains why high‐performance work systems (HPWSs) are not adopted more widely by firms that would appear to benefit economically by adopting them? We address this question by drawing on the upper‐echelons perspective to consider the role of the top managers’ beliefs concerning the financial payoffs from investments in HR (“HR cause‐effect belief”) as well as their employee‐centered value‐based beliefs (labeled “HPWS values”). We propose a conceptual model in which top management HPWS values moderate the relationship between HR cause‐effect beliefs and the intensity of HPWS programs reported by managers as well as the relationship between HPWS programs and employees’ perceptions of implemented HPWS practices. We test our model using a unique multisource data set collected from 120 hotel franchisees that includes survey responses from 648 managers and 1,293 employees. We find that firms’ ability to translate top managers’ cause‐effect beliefs about the economic value of HR investments into adoption of HPWS programs, as well as their ability to effectively implement these HPWS programs, is significantly affected by the value‐based HR beliefs held by top managers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

High‐performance work systems and workplace performance in small,medium‐sized and large firms

This article draws on the Organisational Growth and Development (OGD) life cycle model to explore the relationship between high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and performance in firms of different size, thereby extending understanding of congruence or ‘best fit’ theory within strategic HRM debates. With reference to management control theory, economies of scale and the availability of specialist managerial skills, the article hypothesises that while an HPWS–performance relationship might exist in small, medium‐sized and large firms, the relationship will be stronger in large firms than in both small and medium‐sized firms, and stronger in medium‐sized firms than in small firms. Analysis of data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey demonstrates, however, that there is no association between HPWS and workplace performance in medium‐sized firms, in contrast to the positive relationship between HPWS and performance found in large firms and between HPWS and labour productivity in small firms.     

The role of employee HR attributions in the relationship between high‐performance work systems and employee outcomes

Although research has shown that the use of high‐performance work systems (HPWS) is associated with employee outcomes, our knowledge of the meanings employees attach to HPWS systems and how these shape employee outcomes is still limited. This study examines the signalling impact of enacted HPWS on HR well‐being and HR performance attributions, and how these influence happiness‐ and health‐related outcomes. Using multilevel data (1,065 employees nested within 150 work units) obtained from multiple sources (line managers and employees), our results show that coverage of HPWS was positively associated with the two HR attributions. In addition, HR well‐being attributions were associated with higher levels of commitment and lower levels of job strain. HR performance attributions were associated with higher levels of job strain. The findings of this study highlight the importance of taking into account how employees attach meaning to enacted HPWS in order to predict employee outcomes.     

Exploring the Complementarities Within High‐Performance Work Systems: A Set‐Theoretic Analysis of UK Firms

High‐performance work systems (HPWS) are important conceptual instruments in the human resource management literature. Yet our current understanding of the complementarities within HPWS remains limited for two reasons: First, the dominant theoretical perspectives on HPWS provide a landscape of theoretical possibilities rather than an understanding of different possibilities through which HPWS generate positive effects on performance; and second, the literature on HPWS merely proposes several seemingly equally important HR practices. This article explores the internal nature of HPWS by integrating a configurational perspective of core, peripheral, and nonessential HR practices with a typology of complementarities. Analyzing 530 UK‐based firms using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), I identify four frequently implemented HPWS consistently associated with high labor productivity. The complementarities within all HPWS combine pairs of core HR practices with sets of peripheral HR practices. Moreover, the complementarities within three of the four HPWS rely on firms’ avoidance of implementing certain HR practices. The results suggest that the synergies of HPWS arise from efficient complementarities and virtuous overlaps, and reveal the significance of achieving high performance by not implementing HR practices. This article thus advances a new perspective on HPWSs, highlighting the challenges involved in successfully designing HPWS. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Fostering mutual gains: Explaining the influence of high‐performance work systems and leadership on psychological health and service performance

Despite the growing importance of sustainable management of human resources, human resource management and leadership research on mutuality in the employment relationship has proceeded in a parallel fashion. Drawing on self‐determination theory, this study proposes an integrative model of human growth by addressing two interrelated questions: (a) how and why experienced service‐oriented high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and unit service leadership relate to psychological health and service performance and (b) whether thriving at work and psychological health serially mediate the relationships between the two contextual antecedents and service performance. Our findings revealed that experienced service‐oriented HPWS and unit service leadership related to service performance but indirectly through thriving at work. However, experienced service‐oriented HPWS but not unit service leadership related to psychological health through thriving at work. Furthermore, thriving at work and psychological health serially mediated the relationship between experienced service‐oriented HPWS (but not unit service leadership) and service performance.     

High reliability Human Resource Management (HRM): A system for high risk workplaces

High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) research is based on the search for the most suitable bundle of complementary practices appropriate for the organisation and its operating environment. We examine the contents of a HPWS in organisations seeking impeccable safety and reliability as their foremost ‘performance’ outcome. We propose a ‘High Reliability HRM’ framework, and examine the degree of implementation in a three case study of Australian state emergency services organisations. The findings highlight HRM practices inconsistent with the framework, and illustrated by rich interview accounts, we detail associated negative implications for employee behaviour and attitudes. We contribute to HPWS research by empirically examining how reliability-seeking organisations conceptualise and implement HRM systems. This study emphasises how inconsistency in HRM practice bundles can pose a threat to reliable service provision, a critical finding for emergency services and reliability-seeking organisations more broadly.     

Social identification: linking high performance work systems,psychological empowerment and patient care

This paper examines the mediating effects of social identification on the relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and psychological empowerment and the direct relationship between psychological empowerment and clinician perceptions of quality of patient care. We use structural equation modelling on a sample of 254 health professionals from a large regional hospital in Australia. Results demonstrate, first, a strong effect of HPWS on social identification. Second, social identification mediates the relationship between HPWS and psychological empowerment and, third, psychological empowerment has a strong effect on clinician perceptions of quality of patient care. Implications are drawn for management theory and hospital managers.     

High Performance Work Systems for Service Quality: Boundary Conditions and Influence Processes

Drawing on agency theory and the resource‐based view, this study examines the moderating effect of hotel ownership structure on the relationship between high‐performance work systems for service quality (HPWS‐SQs) and service performance as well as the curvilinear relationship between hotel service performance and hotel profitability. Results from surveys and archival data of 126 hotels showed that when hotels were owned and operated by brands, HPWS‐SQs had a positive effect on service performance. Moderated mediation analyses showed that service performance as a mediator accounted for the moderating effect of ownership and management structure on the relationship between HPWS‐SQs and hotel profitability. In addition, service performance demonstrated an inverted U‐shaped relationship with hotel profitability. These findings advanced the understanding of the boundary conditions and influence processes of HPWS‐SQs on financial performance in service settings. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Crossing the level of employee's performance: HPWS,affective commitment,human capital,and employee job performance in professional service organizations

Extant research on high-performance work systems (HPWS) has primarily examined the effects of HPWS on firm-level performance from a macro perspective and mostly in manufacturing settings. This study extends this literature by integrating social exchange theory and human capital theory perspectives to examine how shop-level HPWS affect employee individual performance in the service context, especially focusing on the small-scale professional service organizations. Data collected from multiple sources included 97 hair salon shop owners and 284 hairdressers as well as objective job performance measured in terms of each hairdresser's average monthly service sales. Results from cross-level analysis indicated that the relationship between shop-level HPWS and employee job performance was mediated by employee affective commitment and their human capital. These findings shed new light on the mechanisms through which HPWS impact employee outcomes and serve to bridge between macro and micro perspectives of human resource management.     

Mapping the relationships between high-performance work systems,employee resilience and engagement: a study of the banking industry in China

Abstract

There is now growing interest in employee resilience in the organizational context and its contribution to organizational performance. However, little is known the extent to which high-performance work systems (HPWS) contributes towards enhancing employee’s resilience as well as their levels of engagement. This study examines the relationships among HPWS, employee resilience and engagement, using a sample of 2040 employees in the Chinese banking industry. Drawing on the job demands-resources model and strategic/high-performance human resource management theory, we develop three hypotheses to test the relationship between HPWS and employee resilience, resilience and employee engagement, and the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between HPWS and engagement. All hypotheses are supported and suggest that HPWS can be used as a job resource to positively affect resilience and subsequently employee engagement. The key message of the paper is that employee resilience can be viewed as a set of skills and attributes that can be developed through the effective use of HPWS to benefit both individuals and the organization.     

Emotional exhaustion and job performance: the mediating role of organizational commitment

We analyze the impact of emotional exhaustion (EE) on turnover intention, task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among hospital nurses in China. The differential mediating effects of affective organizational commitment on the associations between EE and turnover intention, task performance and OCB were examined. Data were collected from both nurses and their supervising physicians using a questionnaire survey in Mandarin. The results revealed full mediation effect for turnover intention and for OCB directed at the organization. There was a significant indirect effect for OCB directed at individuals and no mediation effect for task performance.     

How and when matter: Exploring the interaction effects of high‐performance work systems,employee participation,and human capital on organizational innovation

Existing research on the relationship between high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational innovation has paid insufficient attention to the boundary effects of employee participation and human capital. Bridging the human resource management (HRM) and employment relations literature, this study contributes to the contingency view of HRM and China‐specific research by investigating how human capital and employee participation, direct voice mechanism, and corporate governance participation jointly moderate the relationship between HPWS and organizational innovation. We test our three‐way interaction model using a sample of 108 firms and 1,250 employees in China. The results suggest that HPWS are positively associated with organizational innovation when employees with relatively less human capital are coupled with more direct voice mechanism or less corporate governance participation. In contrast, HPWS are negatively related to organizational innovation when employees possessing greater human capital are coupled with more direct voice mechanism. The theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.