Life on the line: exploring high‐performance practices from an employee perspective

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12180
• Author: Sarah Pass
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

Life on the line: exploring high-performance

practices from an employee perspective

Sarah Pass

ABSTRACT

Through a case-based approach, this study addresses the call for employee-focused re-

search to help us understand whether the high-performance causal chain is the result

of discretionary effort or management control and work intensification. Findings

highlight the role of the manager and workplace relationships and emphasise the need

for ‘good practice’.

1 INTRODUCTION

The high-performance paradigm has been of academic interest for over twenty years

(Guest, 2011). The ‘performance pot of gold at the end of the best practice rainbow’

(Thompson, 2011: 363) spawned an influx of research on the high-performance para-

digm. Consequently, research established an association between HRM practices and

organisational performance of firms (Boselie et al., 2005). The relationship is argued

to be the result of a ‘causal link’that flows from HR practices to employees’attitudes

and behaviour, to organisational performance. However, theoretically, the precise

mechanisms involved in the ‘causal chain’remain untested and are based upon as-

sumptions (Guest, 2011). As a result, academics and practitioners are still left won-

dering how and why it works—instead, prescribed to follow a make believe scenario

whereby they borrow Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (the appropriate

bundle of HR practices), click them together three times and then arrive at their des-

tination (high-organisational performance with happy workers). Although Dorothy

was contented not to question this method and had blind faith in the wizard, aca-

demics and practitioners are more inclined to want to know more before ‘clicking’.

Whether following a ‘best practice’or ‘best fit’agenda, bundling mutually reinforcing

innovative HR practices (MacDuffie, 1995) was assumed to have a positive impact on

employee attitudes and behaviours (Takeuchi et al., 2009) and worker’s well-being

(Wood et al., 2012), ultimately impacting on organisational performance.

Strangely, and somewhat inexplicably given the emphasis on motivational theories

and discretionary effort, employees have been almost totally ignored in the literature

(exclusions include Appelbaum et al., 2000; Barley et al., 2003; Harley et al., 2007;

Macky and Boxall, 2007; 2008; Mohr and Zoghi, 2008; Takeuchi et al., 2009; Wood

and deMenezes, 2011). Instead, it is assumed that employees will benefit from HRM

and are therefore the causal link between HPWS and organisational performance.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-

tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

❒Sarah Pass, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.

Correspondence should be addressed to Sarah Pass, Senior Lecturer in HRM, at Nottingham Business

School, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Newton Building, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ,

UK; email: sarah.pass@ntu.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 48:5-6, 500–517

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Empirically, a ‘common method bias’(Wood et al., 2012: 438) has been created, with

a focus on cross-sectional data, and an (over)reliance on single (management) respon-

dent data (Appelbaum et al., 2000). On the rare occasions that employee interests

have been considered, they are usually questioned on issues of interest to management

and through a managerial discourse (e.g. employees’motivation and commitment to

the organisation and their willingness to participate in teams or work on a more

flexible basis).

The following study addresses these empirical limitations and the lack of employee-

focused research. As a result, the focus is on employees working in a ‘high-

performing’organisation, rather than just the presence (or absence) of particular

practices and their associated performance indicators. To overcome epistemological

limitations of previous research, and to achieve the objectives of the study,

triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative data gathered from employees

was collected at a single case study. Findings highlighted perceived variations in the

implementation of practices, and the importance of work-based relationships. Conse-

quently, findings support the focus for ‘good practice’(Godard, 2004, 2010), rather

than ‘high-performance’practice.

2 THE LACK OF EMPLOYEE-FOCUSED RESEARCH

Initial research on the high-performance paradigm placed an emphasis on theories of

motivation, commitment and discretionary effort (Appelbaum et al., 2000; Delaney

and Huselid, 1996; Guest, 1997; Purcell et al., 2003; Truss, 2001), claiming that they

provided a more coherent account of the links between HRM and organisational per-

formance (Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Guest, 1997; Huselid, 1995; Truss, 2001). The

focus on motivation, commitment and discretionary effort was argued to ‘present a

step forward in theorising about linkages’(Truss, 2001: 1127). However, this ap-

proach has its limitations. The most obvious concern focuses on issues of causality

with the causal chain remaining untested. Instead, it is based on assumptions with

little empirical evidence to support these mechanisms (Takeuchi et al., 2009). These

assumptions are largely the result of a lack of employee-focused research. As a result,

a two-dimensional perspective on employees has developed. Instead, research is usu-

ally from the viewpoint of the manager and rarely from an employee perspective

(Harley et al., 2007).

The lack of employee-focused research is concerning, especially as it is established

that management and employees having different perspectives on work (Liao et al.,

2009). An argument that is further supported by data from the Workplace Employ-

ment Relations Survey (Cully et al., 1999; Millward et al., 2000) and the British Social

Attitudes Surveys (Bryson, 1999), which indicate that management and employees

hold very different views on a wide range of HR policies. Whether following a

unitarist or a pluralist frame of reference (Fox, 1974; Heery, 2016), there is a need

for employee-focused research. From a pluralist approach, the need for employee-

focused research is clear, especially as it considers the employment relationship to

be ‘exploitative, dehumanising and conflicted’(Heery, 2016: 4). Without employee-

focused research, we cannot truly understand the degree of subsequent resistance.

Although a unitaritist approach argues that employer and employee interests can be

integrated (Guest and Peccei, 2001: 209), there is still a need to understand both sides

of the relationship in order to integrate these interests. It is clear therefore that the re-

liance on a single management respondent clearly results in bias (Appelbaum et al.,

501Employee perspective of high-performance practices

© 2018 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd