High-performance work systems (HPWS) and individual performance: The mediating role of commitment

Abstract

ABSTRACT The success of current and future military operations not only depends significantly on the explicit, technical, and tactical knowledge of the military personnel who execute them but also on their attitudes and behavior, such as courage, commitment, and high levels of readiness. Thus, using a sample of 336 military personnel exclusively from the operational component of the Portuguese Navy (PON) force system, the first aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the perception of HPWS and the three dimensions of organizational commitment (OC), i.e., affective (AC), normative (NC) and continuance commitment (CC). The second aim was to analyze the mediating role of the three dimensions of commitment in the relationship between HPWS and performance, i.e., task performance (TP), contextual performance (CP), and counterproductive performance (CPP). The results obtained through the analysis of structural equation models made it possible to support a positive and significant relationship between the HPWS and each of the dimensions of commitment. The results also indicated that the AC has a mediating effect on the relationship between HPWS and performance, fully in the case of CP and partially in TP. In CPP, we observed that there is an indirect effect of HPWS and this dimension of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.