Industry capital intensity and firms’ utilization of HCWS: does firm size matter?

Abstract

Purpose

Following industry-based view’s (IBV) isomorphic trend among firms in the same industries, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate whether industry capital intensity encourages or inhibits firm’s utilization of strategic HRM systems, particularly, high-commitment work systems (HCWS); and second, to examine the quadratic moderating role of firm size on the relationship between industry capital intensity and firms’ utilization of HCWS, drawing on the interactionist view of IBV and the resource-based view, as well as the interactive perspective in the contextualized HRM field.

Design/methodology/approach

The research design was time lagged. Firm-level subjectively rated data were collected from 168 large firms with more than 200 employees in Beijing. Industry-level objectively rated data were collected from the statistics yearbooks of Beijing city.

Findings

The industry capital intensity was positively related to firms’ utilization of HCWS, all else being equal. For large firms in this research, the relationship between industry capital intensity and firms’ utilization of HCWS was moderated by firm size in a quadratic way.

Originality/value

This research contributes to contextualized HRM literature by empirically examining the complex interactive effects of industry capital intensity and firm’s utilization of HCWS. First, it established the direct cross-level relationship between industry capital intensity and firms’ utilization of strategic HRM systems. Moreover, it explored the boundary conditions of such relationship by investigating the quadratic moderating role of firm size.

Citation

Zhang, B., Chen, J., Tian, A., Morris, J. and Fan, H. (2019), "Industry capital intensity and firms’ utilization of HCWS: does firm size matter?", Personnel Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 492-510. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-03-2017-0069