The relationships between high performance work systems, employee wellbeing and employee retention: evidence from China

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) theory has attracted increasing research interest in the field of human resource management (HRM). Originating in the United States in the 1990s, the popularity of the term ‘high performance work practices’ can be traced to an influential report, America’s choice: High skills or low wages! published by the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (CSAW) in 1990, according to Cappelli and Neumark (2001). Following that report, Appelbaum and Batt (1993); (1994) coined and discussed the term ‘high performance work systems’, arguing that American companies needed to advance their work systems to increase competitive advantage. After growing interest in the concept in the late 1990s, HPWS are said to have gained the strongest impetus in academia from a book by Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, and Kalleberg (2000), ‘Manufacturing Advantage: Why High-Performance Work Systems Pay Off’, as the book ‘spawned major interest in how workplace reforms could revive the fortunes of US manufacturing’ (Boxall & Huo, 2019, p. 98). Building on that earlier work, the concept of HPWS has gained prominence in the field of HRM, becoming the dominant model of links between HRM and organisational performance (Harley, 2020).

As with any study, the research has limitations. The data was collected as China was emerging from COVID-19 lockdowns, at a time when the possibility of further lockdowns may have resulted in increased importance of job security, and consequent decreased willingness to change jobs if the current job was seen as secure. In addition, the respondents all worked in first-tier cities, so it is not clear if the results would be replicated in other areas of China (or in other non-Western countries).

The results also suggest directions for future research. As the first study to model the separate effects of ten components of HPWS implementation, three components of employee wellbeing and 13 control variables, the results suggest the most powerful predictors of employees’ stated intention to stay and reported employee wellbeing. However, future studies could extend this research by attempting to replicate these results in other environments and with other control variables.

Date of Thesis submission	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Terri Mylett (Supervisor) & Suzan Burton (Supervisor)