Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance

Abstract

The idea of a transformed or high-performance work system has attracted considerable attention in the United States as an alternative to traditional, mass-production forms of work organization. This article examines the relationships between indicators of high-performance work organizations that are available in the National Organizations Study, on one hand, and measures of organizational performance, on the other. The authors find that characteristics of high-performing work organizations tend to cluster together into a system of organizations. Moreover, the results indicate that human resource policies and practices often identified with high-performing organizations do, in fact, enhance organizational performance.