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Abstract
Studies on the impact of high-performance work systems on employees' well-being are emerging but the underlying theory remains weak. This paper attempts to develop theory of the effects on well-being of four dimensions of high-performance work systems: enriched jobs, high involvement management, employee voice, and motivational supports. Hypothesized associations are tested using multilevel models and data from Britain's Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004). Results show that enriched jobs are positively associated with both measures of well-being: job satisfaction and anxiety–contentment. Voice is positively associated with job satisfaction, and motivational supports with neither measure. The results for high involvement management are not as predicted because it increases anxiety and is independent of job satisfaction.
Acknowledgments
The research reported in this paper was financed by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (Grant No. 000-23-1482). The empirical research uses data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004). This survey is jointly sponsored by the UK's Department of Trade and Industry, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Policy Studies Institute. The National Centre for Social Research was commissioned to conduct the survey fieldwork on behalf of the sponsors. WERS2004 is deposited and available from the Data Archive at the University of Essex, UK. Neither the sponsors nor the Data Archive has any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of the material contained in this paper. We thank Ellen Farleigh and Melina Dritsaki for preparing some of the data for the analysis, Garry Gelade for conducting part of the analysis, and Alison Geldart for her editorial assistance.
Notes
1. The evidence based on the interactions between practices or the core elements of the high-performance work system thus far is not strong; however, not least because many studies do not test for interaction (see Wall and Wood Citation2005).
2. We also tested whether the measure of high involvement management was discrete from the motivational support practices. Together, the practices did not load into a single dimension, although there is some correlation between high involvement management and variable pay (ρ = 0.22), and survey feedback method (ρ = 0.44). The associations with job security guarantees, internal recruitment, forms of performance-related pay, profit-sharing, and employee share ownership were weak (ρ < 0.2). These associations are consistent with de Menezes and Wood's (Citation2006) analysis of WERS98.
3. Individual-level performance-related pay is measured as a binary indicator based on data from the management survey that at least 80% of nonmanagerial employees are paid some form of payment by results, i.e. some element of their pay is based on individual performance.