High performance work systems, cultures and gender demography
| Date | 30 September 2014 |
| Pages | 693-707 |
| Published date | 30 September 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-11-2013-0165 |
| Author | Shaun Pichler,Arup Varma,Andrew Yu,Gerard Beenen,Shahin Davoudpour |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations |
High performance work systems,
cultures and gender demography
Shaun Pichler
Mihaylo College of Business & Economics, California State University,
Fullerton, California, USA
Arup Varma
Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois, USA
Andrew Yu
Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Michigan, USA, and
Gerard Beenen and Shahin Davoudpour
Mihaylo College of Business & Economics, California State University,
Fullerton, California, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test hypotheses about the independent
relationships between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and high-performance work cultures
(HPWC) and employee turnover. Given the growth of women in the workforce, the authors also
develop competing predictions about how organizational gender demography (i.e. a higher percentage
of women) may either strengthen or weaken the relationship of HPWSs to turnover.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 171 human resource (HR) executives across
organizations of varioussizes and industriesin the Chicago metropolitanarea in the USA wasconducted.
Findings – The authors found that HPWS and HPWC are associated with lower turnover, though the
relationship between HPWC and turnover was stronger. Results also indicate that HPWS are more
strongly related to lower turnover among organizations that employ relatively more women.
Research limitations/implications – The results indicates that HPWS may not be universalistic in
terms of their effectiveness specifically as related to turnover. This was a cross-sectional study; it
would be useful for future research to use a longitudinal research design.
Practical implications – The findingssuggest that organizations should consider how theircultures,
use of high-performance work practices, and gender demography are related to important HR metrics
such as turnover.
Social implications – This paper represents an important contribution to understanding the
importance and implications of changes in the workforce demographic characteristics.
Originality/value – This is the first study to integrate an organizational demography perspective
with HPWS.
Keywords Gender, Human resource management, Women
Paper type Research p aper
Introduction
High-performance work systems (HPWS) (Huselid, 1995), have received a great deal of
attention in the human resource management (HRM) literature. HPWS include quality
of work-life (QWL) programs, employee suggestion and involvement programs, team-
based work, competitive compensation, and other similar programs and practices.
When such practices and programs are bundl ed together in a coherent way, so as
to be complementary and mutually reinforcing, they are referred to as HPWS (Boxall
and Macky, 2009; Huselid, 1995). The use of HPWS is an important HR practice that
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
Received 14 November 2013
Revised 22 April 2014
Accepted 22 April 2014
Employee Relations
Vol.36 No.6, 2014
pp. 693-707
rEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-11-2013-0165
693
HPWS, HPWC
and gender
demography
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