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This chapter reports on a longitudinal quasi-experimental field study within an organizational design of a global consumer products manufacturer moving toward high-performance work systems (HPWSs) in North America by integrating business centers and self-directed work teams (SDWTs) coupled with 13 other action-levers within an integrated and bundled high-performance organizations (HPOs) re-design. The results of this organizational design effort are assessed using different types and levels of organizational outcomes (hard record data, behavioral, and attitudinal measures) along a 5-year temporal dimension punctuated by multiple time periods (baseline, during, and after). The organization, which was “built to change” (Lawler & Worley, 2006), in this research had already highly superior or “exemplar” (Collins, 2001) levels of organizational performance. Consequently, the real research question becomes: “What effect does state of the art organizational design and development have on an exemplar organization?” The study also calls into question the field's ability to truly assess exemplar organizations with existing measures of organizational change and development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between hybrid HR systems in call centers and their effect on workers' performance.

Drawing on a sample of 337 call center operator-supervisor dyads, the authors analyzed how the joint perceptions of monitoring and high-performance work systems (HPWS) are associated with workers' authenticity to explain performance, rated by supervisors.

The authors found that when monitoring is perceived as low, HPWS is not associated with authenticity, suggesting that it requires the joint effect of monitoring and HPWS to communicate HR management priorities in call centers. In addition, the authors found that high ratings of monitoring combined with low perceptions of HPWS were associated with the lowest levels of authenticity, whereas the highest levels of authenticity at work were found when high monitoring was combined with high HPWS. The results supported a conditional indirect effect through authenticity to explain when and how hybrid HR systems are associated with better supervisor-rated performance.

This is the first study to test the interaction effects between HPWS and monitoring practices to explain authenticity as a key strategic component of performance in call centers.

Benchmarking research has explored the role of organizational practices and business processes rooted with human capabilities for achieving growth performance. The role of high performance work system as an organizational practice and business process is yet to be studied. Even if studied, no study has been conducted on the role of training transfer climate on high performance work system and organizational performance. The current research aims at examining high performance work system on organizational performance. Further, the study also examine training transfer climate as a mediating variable between HPWS and organizational performance.

Data collected from 415 executives of a high performance-based power sector company of Gujarat, India. The survey instrument consists of high performance work system, training transfer climate and organizational performance. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for a simultaneous assessment of overall and specific elements of measurement validity and reliability. Structural equation modelling used to test the hypothesized model.

The result proved the capability of high performance work system to predict organizational performance. Further, the result supports the hypothesis that training transfer climate acts as a mediator between high performance work system and organizational performance.

The result has important theoretical and managerial implications. Theoretically, the research extends the scope of benchmarking to high performance work system. The managerial implications have been discussed from the training transfer climate perspectives.

The originality of the study lies with proving the role of high performance work system and training transfer climate as an organizational practice and business process within benchmarking research.

This paper aims to examine the implications of high performance work system (HPWS) strength from a managerial perspective and the impact of economic, cultural, political, legal and technological factors on the operationalization of HPWSs in the banking industry in Sri Lanka.

The data for this study were collected from three licensed commercial banks in Sri Lanka. This research used a case study approach for data collection with archival analysis of records and semi-structured interviews with the CEO, head of HR, two board members and three focus groups (top, middle and lower level managers across various functional areas) in each bank which altogether covers 66 key informants.

The findings supported the research proposition that to gain positive outcomes on organizational effectiveness, there should be a strong HPWS, resulting in a positive attitudinal climate among employees. Further, the findings provide evidence of the global applicability of HPWSs, although more research is needed to clearly specify the contextual boundaries of HPWS effectiveness.

Contemporary research provides ample evidence to endorse the contribution of high performance work systems toward organizational effectiveness. However, there is a dearth of literature on how high performance work systems are operationalized across the management hierarchy and support the achievement of organizational effectiveness. Few studies have been conducted on high performance work system strength and organizational effectiveness in emerging economies.

This paper aims to review the existing body of knowledge on high-performance work systems (HPWS) with a special focus on the recent developments that strengthen its prevalence. Considering the current business ecosystem, the author proposes two more characteristics of HPWS which will add value to the literature. It also aims to propose several gaps in the literature considering the role of HPWS in the organization.

This paper uses a systematic literature review methodology to strengthen the concept, its connection with people and organization, theoretical underpinnings and intervening mechanisms that have not received much attention. The information collected from various studies was analyzed thematically and synthesized to assess the existing body of literature. For a better understanding of HPWS, the review is organized under the following subthemes: definition and meaning, conceptualization, technology infusion, relationship with people and organization, theories commonly used and positives and negative consequences of HPWS.

This study identifies and describes key characteristics of HPWS such as system, synergistic effect, performance and proposes two new characteristics – agility and adoption of technology. Further findings of this study indicate that HPWS has both positive and negative influences on employee outcomes. The positive outcome helps in the development of human capital that provides a competitive advantage to the organization. The study also underlines some negative influences of HPWS on employee behavior due to the misalignment of HR practices. Scope for further research is also provided for future researchers.

The paper adds the recent developments in the area of HPWS literature and proposes research directions for future researchers.

Studies of high‐performing organisations have consistently reported a positive relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and performance outcomes. Although many of these studies have been conducted in manufacturing, similar findings of a positive correlation between aspects of HPWS and improved care delivery and patient outcomes have been reported in international health care studies. The purpose of this paper is to bring together the results from a series of studies conducted within Australian health care organisations. First, the authors seek to demonstrate the link found between high performance work systems and organisational performance, including the perceived quality of patient care. Second, the paper aims to show that the hospitals studied do not have the necessary aspects of HPWS in place and that there has been little consideration of HPWS in health system reform.

The paper draws on a series of correlation studies using survey data from hospitals in Australia, supplemented by qualitative data collection and analysis. To demonstrate the link between HPWS and perceived quality of care delivery the authors conducted regression analysis with tests of mediation and moderation to analyse survey responses of 201 nurses in a large regional Australian health service and explored HRM and HPWS in detail in three case study organisations. To achieve the second aim, the authors surveyed human resource and other senior managers in all Victorian health sector organisations and reviewed policy documents related to health system reform planned for Australia.

The findings suggest that there is a relationship between HPWS and the perceived quality of care that is mediated by human resource management (HRM) outcomes, such as psychological empowerment. It is also found that health care organisations in Australia generally do not have the necessary aspects of HPWS in place, creating a policy and practice gap. Although the chief executive officers of health service organisations reported high levels of strategic HRM, the human resource and other managers reported a distinct lack of HPWS from their perspectives. The authors discuss why health care organisations may have difficulty in achieving HPWS.

Leaders in health care organisations should focus on ensuring human resource management systems, structures and processes that support HPWS. Policy makers need to consider HPWS as a necessary component of health system reform. There is a strong need to reorient organisational human resource management policies and procedures in public health care organisations towards high performing work systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine sustainable human resource management (HRM) based on the synthesis and simultaneous effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on organisational performance and employee harm in five Asia Pacific countries.

Data collected using the CRANET survey instrument was analysed using two canonical correlation analyses.

This study found flexible high-performance work arrangements (FHPWA), such as tele-working and compressed working week could have a negative effect on organisational performance. However, it also found that employee benefits and trade union influence have a moderating effect on the impact of FHPWA resulting in improved organisational profitability and reduction of employee harm.

Limitations include the aggregation of the data from the five countries and consequently the neglect of national institutional factors on the impact of HPWS on outcomes. A limited number of factors were used as indicators of HPWS, organisational performance and employee wellbeing/employee harm.

This study indicates particular HRM policies considered as part of a HPWS have different impacts on organisational profitability and employee wellbeing. There is a need for further research to determine the impact of particular policies and to also examine the interaction and moderating effects of high-performance work practices and trade unions.

This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on sustainable HRM by examining the impact of HPWS on organisational performance and employee wellbeing. It is the first time this has been examined in Asian pacific countries.

The absence of robust information on the application of Human resources managemnet (HRM) practices in the Arab Middle Eastern region has generated an urgent need to understand what and how HRM practices can be used to manage employees in the region. Therefore, building on the social exchange theory and job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this paper proposes a model to examine the effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on employees' work-related outcomes, namely, job performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and innovative work behavior (IWB) in a non-industry setting in an Arab Middle Eastern context. In this model, work engagement was theorized to serve as an intervening mechanism among the aforementioned relationships.

Data were collected from 210 academic staff working in the Palestinian higher education sector, together with evaluations from 30 supervisors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data.

The results indicate that HPWS positively affect employees' job performance, OCB and IWB. Moreover, work engagement partially mediates these relationships.

The results can be useful for managers in the Middle East pertaining to the role HPWS can play in boosting employees' job performance, OCB and IWB.

HRM research in Middle East, although limited, is mainly focused on examining the impact of HPWS on organizational rather than individual outcomes. In response to the scholarly call made on the strong need to conduct more HRM research in the Middle East (Budhwar et al., 2019), this research represents the first study that examines the impact of HPWS on in-role and extra-role performance in an Arab Middle Eastern context. Furthermore, the study contributes to the HRM research by relying on a sample from a non-industry sector rather than a sample from a manufacturing setting. Finally, this research is one of the few studies that explore the outcomes of HPWS in an academic setting through the intervening mechanism of work engagement.

By following the “employee-centric” approach, this study aims at identifying the impact of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on specific employee attitudinal outcomes such as work engagement, job satisfaction and affective commitment in the Indian healthcare industry.

The target population for this study includes the nurses working in large private multi-specialty tertiary care hospitals in India. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) techniques are used on a sample of 152 nurses working in two large specialty hospitals.

In the Indian healthcare industry context, the nurse's perception of HPWS has shown a significant positive effect on their attitudinal variables such as work engagement, job satisfaction and affective commitment. When checked for mediation of work engagement and job satisfaction variables in HPWS – affective commitment relationship, nurse's job satisfaction partially mediated the relationship, but nurse's work engagement has shown no mediation effect.

This is one of the pioneering studies conducted in the Indian healthcare industry context, especially on the nurse's sample in identifying the impact of high-performance work systems on their attitudinal outcomes. Underscoring the paucity of HPWS research in the Indian healthcare industry, this study's findings will be an addition to the HPWS literature and also to the nursing research in the Indian healthcare settings.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the role relational coordination might play in understanding the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational performance.

Research was conducted in a large financial services provider in Pakistan. Across 120 branches of the bank, data on relational coordination and on the practices making up HPWS were obtained from employees by means of a questionnaire survey. Data on branch-level performance were obtained independently of this, from the bank itself.

Analysis shows relational coordination to be a mediating variable between HPWS and branch performance. Relational coordination is also a mediating variable for each of the three component parts of HPWS: ability-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR practices.

These results have important implications from two points of view. From the point of view of relational coordination, they show how the concept might apply in a previously under-researched sector, and also how relational coordination might act as a mediator for HR practices other than those aimed directly at enhancing employee opportunities. Breaking down HPWS into its component parts suggests that individual employee ability and motivation might also play a role.

This suggests that the ability-motivation-opportunity model needs to place greater emphasis on opportunity, and also that more account needs to be taken of the structural aspect of work – in particular, the degree of interdependence.