Team Manager’s Implementation, High Performance Work Systems Intensity, and Performance: A Multilevel Investigation

Recently, capturing within-organization variability during the implementation of high performance work systems (HPWS) has received considerable attention; however, the source of such variability has rarely been considered. If the utilization of HPWS is positively related to performance outcomes, examining factors contributing to an effective implementation may yield significant theoretical and practical implications. For this purpose, this study extends the extant HPWS literature in two ways. First, we attempt to conceptualize team-level HPWS intensity and identify antecedents of variance across teams. Specifically, we regard the visible role of team managers in the process of HPWS implementation as a primary interpretive filter that makes team members perceive differences in HPWS intensity, which in turn affects team performance. Second, we posit that if human resources (HR) policies are viewed as an exchange agreement between the organization and its employees, then a team manager more actively enforcing espoused HR practices may positively influence the sense of human resource management (HRM)–induced psychological contract fulfillment of team members, which in turn influences individual in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Our hypotheses are tested with data from 183 matched responses from 51 teams, and the results generally support both the team-level and multilevel hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our study.