Abstract
AbstractThrough a case‐based approach, this study addresses the call for employee‐focused research to help us understand whether the high‐performance causal chain is the result of discretionary effort or management control and work intensification. Findings highlight the role of the manager and workplace relationships and emphasise the need for ‘good practice’.
Highlights
The high-performance paradigm has been of academic interest for over twenty years (Guest, 2011)
The relationship is argued to be the result of a ‘causal link’ that flows from HR practices to employees’ attitudes and behaviour, to organisational performance
Following the research procedure set out by Truss (2001:1127–1129), the question of HPWS and organisational performance was ‘inverted’ by selecting a highperformance organisation and looking at what HR practices the company employed, and whether these could be constituted as a bundle of high-performance practices or an HPWS
Summary
The high-performance paradigm has been of academic interest for over twenty years (Guest, 2011). The ‘performance pot of gold at the end of the best practice rainbow’ (Thompson, 2011: 363) spawned an influx of research on the high-performance paradigm. The relationship is argued to be the result of a ‘causal link’ that flows from HR practices to employees’ attitudes and behaviour, to organisational performance. Academics and practitioners are still left wondering how and why it works—instead, prescribed to follow a make believe scenario whereby they borrow Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (the appropriate bundle of HR practices), click them together three times and arrive at their destination (high-organisational performance with happy workers). Whether following a ‘best practice’ or ‘best fit’ agenda, bundling mutually reinforcing innovative HR practices (MacDuffie, 1995) was assumed to have a positive impact on employee attitudes and behaviours (Takeuchi et al, 2009) and worker’s well-being (Wood et al, 2012), impacting on organisational performance
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