High-involvement work practices and social capital formation: Examining the role of strategic orientation in nursing homes

Abstract

The relationship between organization strategy and a high-involvement work system (HIWS) in the accumulation of social capital is investigated in nursing subunits in a large sample of Canadian long-term care organizations. Results suggest that strategic orientation of nursing homes has a differential impact on the ability of these organizations to accumulate social capital in its nursing staff. Using a competing values framework to characterize strategic orientation, long-term care establishments pursuing an employee-focused strategy are able to accumulate higher levels of social capital in their nursing units through the adoption of a high-involvement human resource management (HRM) work system. By contrast, long-term care organizations pursuing an operational efficiency strategy, in tandem with the adoption of a high-involvement HRM system, produce no additional accumulation in nursing unit social capital.

Citation

Rondeau, K.V. and Wagar, T.H. (2010), "High-involvement work practices and social capital formation: Examining the role of strategic orientation in nursing homes", Fottler, M.D., Khatri, N. and Savage, G.T. (Ed.) Strategic Human Resource Management in Health Care (Advances in Health Care Management, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-8231(2010)0000009006