The impact of human capital management on operational performance at the gambia national water and
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2.2.2 Human Resource Bundles Several researches have sought to establish a link between human resources and performance, some of which rely on the single measures of HR practices. Bartel (1994) cited in Stiles (2011) establishes a link between the adoption of training programmes and productivity growth. The adoption of training programmes has also been linked to financial performance (Russell et al., 1985), and Gerhart and Milkovich (1990) and Weitzman and Kruse (1990) identify the links between incentive compensation schemes and productivity. Terpstra and Rozell (1993) examine the extensiveness of recruitment, selection test validation and the use of formal selection procedures and find the positive connectivity between organisational profits and selectivity in staffing, thereby leading to a greater extent of organisational performance (Becker and Huselid, 1992; Schmidt et al., 1979). Performance evaluation on the linkage to compensation schemes has also contributed to an increase in the firm’s profitability. However, such reliance on single HR practice may not reveal an accurate picture. The dominant view of human resource efficacy is that individual human resource practices 15 ‘have the limited ability to generate competitive advantage in isolation but in combination, they can enable a firm to realize its full competitive advantage’ (Barney, 1995: 56). In other words, relying on the single HR practice with which to predict performance is unlikely to be revealing. It should be clear from the previous section that there are often links between these high commitment HR practices. For example, workers are more likely to welcome employee involvement and information sharing if they have employment security and their workplace is relatively status-free. Equally, they are more likely to show an interest in team working if their efforts are rewarded with performance-related incentives, share ownership and access to training opportunities. Similarly, if sufficient care has been taken at the recruitment and selection stage, new recruits are more likely to adopt flexible working practices and welcome team working as well as be striving for internal promotion in the future. In isolation, or without the support of a strong organizational culture, each of these practices can easily be dismissed as nothing more than a short- term fad or fashion. Conversely the more that HR practices form a coherent and synergistic bundle of related practices, it is argued, organizations are more likely to enjoy success due to the fact that the high commitment paradigm is more deeply embedded into the culture of the workplace. Benson and Lawler (2003) note that research at the work unit level confirms the importance of viewing practices as complementary and that the high commitment model, in general, out-performed more traditional control oriented work systems despite the fact that the exact combination of practices is uncertain and may be industry specific. There is certainly a theoretical support for the notion that HR practices should operate more effectively when combined together. For example, it could be argued that 16 extensive training is essential for self-managed teams to run effectively, or that higher than average rewards are likely to have a positive impact on numbers of applications for jobs. An employer may feel more inclined to promise employment security if selective hiring has taken place, self-managed teams are extensive throughout the organization, and rewards are contingent upon performance. Wood and de Menezes (1998) find an ‘identifiable pattern to the use of high commitment HR practices’ and confirm that they are being used in conjunction with each other. Similarly, despite finding a low take-up of the high commitment model across his sample of Irish workplaces, Roche (1999) notes that ‘organizations with a relatively high degree of integration of human resource strategy into business strategy are very much more likely to adopt commitment oriented bundles of human resource practices’. Guest (1997) categorises previous attempts to examine internal fit across HR practices into three distinct groups. First, there are criterion specific studies, such as that by Pfeffer, which outlines a number of ‘best practices’ and suggests that the closer organizations get to this list the better their performance is likely to be. The danger with such universalistic approaches is that they ignore potentially significant differences between organizations, sectors and countries, and posit a tải về 1.26 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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