High performance work systems in Ireland: human resource and organizational outcomes

From the perspective of the resource based view (RBV), although traditional sources of competitive advantage such as natural resources, technology, economies of scales, and so forth, create value, these resources are increasingly easy to imitate. As such, human capital and human resource management may be an especially important source of sustainable competitive advantage. Over the past few years, there has been growing research interest in the competitive advantage associated with high performance work systems (HPWS), a set of management policies and practices thought to endow employees with greater levels of skill, information, motivation and discretion. In this study, we describe a study examining the relative effectiveness of HPWS in the Irish context. Results suggest that greater use of high performance work systems is associated with positive human resource and organizational outcomes. Specifically, firms utilizing higher levels of HPWS tend to have lower rates of employee absenteeism and voluntary turnover along with higher labor productivity and lower labor costs.