A Relational Model of How High-Performance Work Systems Work

 Article Review

Introduction:

In the paper reviewed, Jody H. Gittell, a leading researcher, theorist and expert on Relational Coordination for High Performance, along with her colleagues Rob Seidner and Hulian Wimbush, conducted a study that how high-performance work systems of an organization can improve its performance outcomes. By high-performance work systems, the paper refers to those human resource practices that enables an organization to improve its performance by utilizing its employees’ capability to create value. Researchers of this study highlight that high-performance work system’s influence on organizational performance outcomes is a rising phenomenon and the literature on human resource practices present two dominant models to describe this causal mechanism. Based on human capital theory, the central implication of these models is that the organizational performance can be improved by either (1) increasing the employees’ knowledge and skills, or (2) by motivating them to perform in the best interest of the organization, or by implementing both the models simultaneously.

Conversely, the researchers adopt an emerging view where the employee-employee relationship is the prime causal mechanism through which high-performance work system can positively influence the organization’s performance outcomes. The researchers also present a relational model of high-performance work systems in which the employees across multiple functions are engaged through coordinated efforts and contribute in high quality outcomes. Based on relational coordination theory, the significance of this model is that frequent and quality coordination among employees across multiple functions enables them to share knowledge and goals and brings in mutual respect thus empowering the organization to accomplish their desired outcomes.  The authors have drew a rich literature on considerable progress till 2009, classifying the work practices through which the employee-employee relationship is influenced and developed. Though the types of the employee-employee relationship in literature vary in nature, including relational coordination, social networks, social capital, and mindful interacting, but all of these suggest that these work practices can enhance the organizational performance.

Unlike Post-bureaucratic theorists, who reject the concept of traditional or Tayloristic organizational work practices that restricts communication between employees, the researchers of the study stressed that such work practices should be redesigned. In their view, such redesigning of traditional work practices would foster the employee-employee relationship thus enabling them to coordinate their work effectively. To prove their stance, they have emphasized on (1) the adoption of six high-performance work practices including selection, conflict resolution, performance measurement, rewards, meetings and boundary spanners at cross-functional level, (2) the influence of these work practices on relational coordination and (3) the degree with which the employee-employee relationship brings shared knowledge, shared goals and mutual respect in the organization for improved performance.