HOW MUCH DO HIGH‐PERFORMANCE WORK PRACTICES MATTER? A META‐ANALYSIS OF THEIR EFFECTS ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
verifiedrich profile · Personnel Psychology · 2006
COMBS, JAMES; LIU, YONGMEI; HALL, ANGELA; KETCHEN, DAVID
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
high performance work systems → labor productivity
high involvement work practices hiwps → organizational performance
high performance work systems → business unit performance
high performance work practices → organizational performance
high performance work practices → organizational performance
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
high involvement work practices hiwps predicts organizational performance
high performance work practices correlates organizational performance
high performance work practices predicts organizational performance
high performance work systems predicts business unit performance
high performance work systems predicts labor productivity
high performance work systems predicts organizational performance
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
Although there is growing evidence that high performance work practices (HPWPs) affect organizational performance, varying sample characteristics, research designs, practices examined, and organizational performance measures used has led extant findings to vary dramatically, making the size of the overall effect difficult to estimate. We use meta‐analysis to estimate the effect size and test whether effects are larger for (a) HPWP systems versus individual practices, (b) operational versus financial performance measures, and (c) manufacturing versus service organizations. Statistical aggregation of 92 studies reveals an overall correlation that we estimate at .20. Also, the relationship is stronger when researchers examine systems of HPWPs and among manufacturers, but it appears invariant across performance measures. We use our findings as a basis to offer 4 suggestions intended to shape research practices such that future meta‐analyses might answer today's emerging questions.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
disputes “Although HPWS may prompt higher levels of better intrinsic rewards from their job roles, employees may simultaneously experience strain from amplified workload, accelerated work intensification and surge in anxiety that may ultimately boil down to barricade for better performance [20, 23].”
supports “Some study also suggests that high-performance work practice affects organizational performance, however, practice is needed solely to improve the performance of the company (J. Combs et al., 2006).”
supports “Collectively, these activities result in higher job satisfaction, productivity, and performance, as employees make better decisions [53].”
supports “It is a set of performance-enabling HR practices that plays an important role in selecting, developing, motivating, managing, and sustaining human capital resources to deliver positive synergistic effects on firm performance and outcomes (Combs et al., 2006).”
supports “This leads to promoting changes in the management system to improve productivity employee performance and create a competitive position for enterprises [2,19,22].”
supports “As a form of formal bureaucratic control (Snell, 1992), HPWPs have been found to be positively associated with a range of firm-level outcomes, including labor productivity and financial performance (e.g., Combs et al., 2006; Saridakis et al., 2017).”
supports “The practices investigated in this study were high-performance work practices (Posthuma et al., 2013) that have the potential to improve organizational performance (Combs et al., 2006).”
supports “Aligning HPWP interventions with institutional strategy has been shown to enhance the overall performance of an institution (Combs et al. 2006) and reduce employee turnover (Knies et al. 2018).”
supports “Successors to the reviews are the meta-analyses of, among others, Combs et al. (2006) and Subramony (2009) which investigated the effect of HRM bundles (coherent set of HRM activities aimed at improving organizational performance).”
supports “Human resource practices can contribute to the strategic goals and performance of the organization (Truss, 2001; Wright et al., 2001; Boselie et al., 2005; Combs et al., 2006; Buller and McEvoy, 2012; Ridder et al., 2012; Sabiu et al., 2019).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.1080/15416518.2014.1001055
- 10.1186/s43093-024-00382-w
- 10.1080/09585192.2017.1407088
- 10.51200/lbibf.v21i1.4094
- 10.3390/ijerph20095736
- 10.1007/s11365-025-01069-6
- 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22720
- 10.1177/23409444211002521
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1355378
- 10.1080/13603108.2024.2392165
- 10.24294/jipd.v8i1.2812
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1400772
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.