Developments in the HRM–Performance Research stream: The mediation studies

By Professor Stephen Wood

High-Involvement Management must be de-coupled from the High-Performance Work System concept. The narrative that links them in reviews of research on human resource management (HRM) practices are misleading. Distinguishing them is necessary as their underlying theory of performance and policy implications differ. Moreover, criticisms of the quality of research on High-Performance Work System studies do not necessarily apply to that focused on High-Involvement Management.

A stream of research in the 1990s testing the combined effects of HRM practices on the performance of organizations emerged. It was addressing whether the High-Performance Work System lived up to its name. Other labels were used to name it such an HRM System, including High-Involvement Management, but they were viewed as synonymous. They were assumed to be capturing a system of practices that includes intensive selection and training procedures, performance-related pay systems and some form of employee participation, designed to maximise employees’ motivation, skills and opportunities for employee involvement. This allowed reviewers to treat the studies as homogeneous and, having examined them, they concluded that the High-Performance Work System was associated with high organizational performance. The focus of research in the past decade has consequently been on explaining this link through assessing the intermediate or mediating variables between HRM and performance.

I have reviewed these studies in SAGE’s German Journal of Human Resource Management. I first show that the array of terms has reduced so that the High-Performance Work System now dominates. Secondly, having earlier shown that the black-box studies were not consistent as many neglected employee involvements, I demonstrate that the mediation studies continue to do this. Thirdly, I show that criticisms that are beginning to be made about pioneering studies – the misalignment of tests and theory, the misspecification of measures of the system, the excessive variety of practices – have been duplicated in the recent studies that focus on the mediators of the HRM–Performance link.

However, I also show that a group of studies, including my own, stand out as distinctive as they concentrate on High-Involvement Management. The criticisms of the field do not readily apply to high-involvement management studies. They are more consistent with the theory, measure a coherent approach to management centered on employee involvement through involvement practices, and use an appropriate statistical method. The nature of involvement management is more assured and theoretically grounded. The benefits of job-level involvement on employee well-being and performance are well established and organizational-level involvement should change for the better, the way people connect what they do with what others do, develop shared understandings, and learn from each other.

My review shows that there is a clear need to differentiate High-Involvement Management from High-Performance Work Systems. The differences go beyond the emphases placed on types of practices: the perspectives involve different theories of performance. In High-Involvement Management the enactment of the approach explains the performance effect – the principles explain performance, not the practices. The principles guide not just the design of practices, but also reactions to key events and everyday leadership behaviors. The practices must be consistent with these principles, but their precise nature may vary. In contrast, in the High-Performance Work Systems perspective, performance effects are the result of using a preformed set of practices in a coherent way. The practices must be best in class if the concept is to make sense, each practice playing a unique role that others do not. The achievement of high organizational performance depends on the amount of their use or interaction effects.

The differentiation has important policy implications. High-Involvement Management entails managers internalizing a value set and forensic design of practices to a high degree of specificity. The High-Performance Work Systems perspective is a technocratic approach, a literal evidence-based approach which involves managers acquiring knowledge of best practices.

Involvement has also been neglected in practice and needs to be revived. The emphasis has been on performance management which puts stress on incentive systems, performance monitoring and appraisal systems. As we come out of the pandemic there will be opportunities to foster involvement and challenges that are almost crying out for it - decisions about home working or increased digitization of work processes are obvious examples. Let’s hope such opportunities are not missed.

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Article details

Developments in the HRM–Performance Research stream: The mediation studies
Stephen Wood
First Published January 14, 2021, Research Article
DOI: 10.1177/2397002220986943
From German Journal of Human Resource Management

About the author

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Stephen Wood is Professor of Management, University of Leicester, and a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Science and Academic Fellow of the CIPD. He is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Management. His recent research has centred on employees’ well-being including how management practices and recessions affect it, and its effects on organisational performance. Currently he is studying home working in the pandemic, and the contrasting effects of individual and collective performance-related pay. Stephen has provided policy advice to a range of organisations and contributed to public life in diverse ways including being on the research team of the British Government’s Workplace Employee Relations Survey of 2012.