The Effects of Traditional and Modern Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Performance in Business Organisations in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Employee performance is the outcome of the influence of various factors including human resource management (HRM) practices. Globalisation and information technology resulted in emergence and modern practices of HRM that are different in approach of the erstwhile HRM practices which are termed as traditional HRM Practices. Modern HRM practices are expected to produce higher employee performance scores compared to that of traditional HRM practices. Review of the existing literature on the theme of the study indicates that there are no studies covering the effects of traditional and modern HRM practices on employee performance. Therefore, the present study is expected to contribute towards plugging this gap. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the impact of modern human resource management practices on employee performance compared to that of traditional human resource management practices. Data used for this study were collected from primary sources using a questionnaire. This paper analyses the impact of traditional HRM and modern HRM practices in employee performance in business organisations in Papua New Guinea employing statistical tools like descriptive data analysis, correlation and regression analysis. SOEs mostly followed traditional HRM practices and PEs followed modern HRM practice mostly due to their organisational structures, and history of their origins. Results of the study indicate that many of the traditional HRM practices resulted in the low employee performance in SOEs whilst modern HRM practices resulted in high employee performance in PEs. It is therefore suggested that SOEs may take the advantage of high employee performance by restructuring their organisations that allow them to follow modern HRM practices.