EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ON EMPLOYEES: SYSTEM, CONFIGURATION AND PRACTICE EFFECTS Juan Carlos Bou1, Kim Hoque2 and Nicolas Bacon3 1 Universitat Jaume I 2 Birkbeck, University of London 3 University of Nottingham 1. Introduction Many recent studies have explored the relationship between human resource management practices and organisational performance. Most of these studies suggest that a bundle of complimentary practices that comprise High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) are associated with higher levels of organisational performance. Although progress has been made in understanding the relationship between HPWS and organisational performance, the impact of th ...view middle of the document...
The paper applies structural equation modelling to explore the relationship between HPWS and employee attitudes using the AMO framework. This allows us to: (a) empirically demonstrate the existence of a general HPWS that accounts for the complementarities among the 17 human resource management practices analysed; (b) test the amount of observed variance of HR practices that is explained by the general factor; (c) test the existence of additional but more specific configurations of practices that may capture attempts by managers to focus on developing specific aspects of human resource management strategy; (d) test the influence of the general and the specific factors on a set of criterion variables measuring employee perceptions of their ability, motivation an opportunity to participate; (e) compare the amount of explained variance of the criterion variables between the general and specific bundles and the individual practices. This comparison allows us to determine to what extent bundles of
practices (and the complementarities across practices that they represent) are associated with employee attitudes and behaviours. 2. Data and method of analysis This paper uses linked employer-employee data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 management and employee surveys. These surveys are designed to be nationally representative of British workplaces with five or more employees within Standard Industrial Classification major groups D to O (agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing and mining and quarrying are excluded), when probability weighted to take into account the complex nature of the WERS survey design. The management survey comprises 2,295 observations with a response rate of 64 per cent (Kersley et al. 2005). Respondents to the management survey are the most senior manager within the workplace with responsibility for employee relations matters. The WERS 2004 employee questionnaire comprises 22,451 observations, with a response rate of 61 per cent. The first stage of the analysis assesses the extent to which the use of 17 HR practices are associated and may be accounted by a single latent factor (HPWS) as commonly identified in previous research (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Combs et al. 2006; Hoque 2000; Huselid 1995; Wood and de Menezes 1998, 2008). We then explore whether further specific factors (configurations) help to explain the associations between these practices. The practices were classified into the three specific factors by their relationship with ability, motivation and the opportunity to participate. The second stage of the analysis involves a series of regressions to explore the relationship between HPWS, configurations and individual practices and a set of criterion variables representing employee's perceptions about their ability, motivation and opportunity to participate. Variables High performance practices The model involves a set of 17 high performance work practices selected based on previous stud...
