National culture and high commitment management

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between national culture and high commitment management (HCM). A model linking national culture and HCM is developed and hypotheses concerning the relationship between national culture and the take‐up of specific HCM practices are derived. Empirical results demonstrating the relationship between national culture and the take‐up of particular HCM practices across nine countries are presented. The paper further establishes that the adoption of certain individual HCM practices is more closely associated with superior employee performance in countries with certain cultural characteristics than in others. However, when HCM is implemented as a package of practices, it is found to be associated with superior employee performance across different cultural settings. The paper concludes that national culture plays an exogenous determining role in the adoption of HCM practices, with the result that the globalisation of HCM practices should be undertaken with sensitivity.