High involvement work practices and firm performance

Abstract

During the past two decades the chain of three links organizational strategy – human resources practices – organizational performance has been deeply analysed. However, the mediator role of organizational structure in the first link of this chain remains relatively uninvestigated. In this article we analyse a model of relationships among organizational strategy, organizational structure, human resources practices, and organizational performance. Through a structural equation methodology applied to a sample of 183 Spanish companies, we will try to confirm that organizations with differentiation strategies are more likely to implement high involvement work practices. As a novelty we will introduce organizational structure as a mediator of this relationship. For that we will use the construct control mechanisms (centralization, formalization and socialization). Further, we will analyse the effect on firm performance of these proposed relationships among differentiation strategy, control mechanisms and high involvement work practices.

Keywords:

• differentiation strategy
• high involvement work practices
• human resources
• organizational structure
• performance

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología for their financial support for this research (project reference SEJ2005-04553).