There is a lack of consensus on the role of employee well‐being in the human resource management–organizational performance relationship. This review examines which of the competing perspectives –‘mutual gains’ or ‘conflicting outcomes’– is more appropriate for describing this role of employee well‐being. In addition, this review examines whether study attributes such as the measurement of key variables, the level of analysis and the study design affect a study's outcomes. The review covers 36 quantitative studies published from 1995 to May 2010. Employee well‐being is described here using three dimensions: happiness, health and relationship. The main findings are that employee well‐being in terms of happiness and relationship is congruent with organizational performance (mutual gains perspective), but that health‐related well‐being appears to function as a conflicting outcome. Directions for future research and theoretical development are suggested.

Twenty years ago Guest (1987) published his normative framework describing the essence of HRM. He presented HRM as a new approach to personnel management, emphasizing its strategic contribution, its closer alignment to business, the involvement of line management, and focusing on HRM outcomes like commitment, flexibility and quality. The achievement of these human resource outcomes was, in turn, expected to contribute to a range of positive organizational outcomes, including high job performance, low turnover, low absence and high cost-effectiveness through the full utilization of employees, now relabelled as human resources. Put this way, it is not difficult to understand the wide appeal that the notion of HRM had (and still has) to academics and practitioners alike. It led to the renaming of chairs/departments within universities and to changed job titles in the business community. The attractiveness of the concept of HRM increased considerably when Huselid, in 1995, published a ground-breaking paper in the Academy of Management Journal in which he demonstrated a correlation between the degree of sophistication of HR-systems and the market value per employee among a range of publicly quoted companies in the USA. The paper generated admiration, criticism and an abundance of 'me too' research, trying to replicate the proclaimed relationship between HRM and Performance (Delery and Doty, 1996;Guthrie, 2001;Koch and McGrath, 1996;. Since then many academics on both sides of the Atlantic have become active in this field, with a special focus on the relationship between HRM and Performance. Within this rapidly expanding field of study, the HRM-Performance relationship has been approached from a variety of perspectives rooted in organizational behaviour, sociology, economics, industrial relations and organizational psychology, with a particular emphasis placed on the impact of various combinations of human resource practices on a range of performance outcomes at the individual and organizational level of analysis.

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One of the more fundamental aspects of the ongoing debate about the added value of HRM relates to `best' practice versus `best-fit'. Best practice suggests the universal success of certain HR practices, while best-fit acknowledges the relevant impact of contextual factors. We argue that differences in embeddedness and in institutional settings between, for example, countries affect the nature of HRM. To understand this phenomenon, we are in need of additional theory. In this article we will use the theory of new institutionalism as a better way to understand the shaping of HR policies and practices in different settings. After a concise review of the latest debates in the area of strategic HRM, in which the resource-based view is the dominant perspective, we turn to an analysis of HRM in different institutional settings, which suggests the need for additional theory: ie new institutionalism. We offer propositions to explain the impact of different institutional mechanisms, including coercive, normative and mimetic ones, on the shaping of HR policies and practices in organisations. The remainder of the article then focuses on possible implications for practitioners, theoretical implications for future research, and challenges for strategic HRM.S trategic HRM has gained both credibility and popularity over the past decade, speci® cally with respect to its impact on organisational performance (see, for example, overviews by Delery and Doty, 1996;Guest, 1997; Paauwe and Richardson, 1997;Boselie et al, 2001). According to Delery and Shaw (2001), there is general agreement that `(1) human capital can be a source of competitive advantage, (2) that HR practices have the most direct in¯uence on the human capital of a ® rm, and (3) that the complex nature of HRM systems of practice can enhance the inimitability of the system'. What are the theoretical foundations of strategic HRM as we know it?Wright and McMahan (1992) provide a useful overview of a range of possible theories that might help explain the link between HRM and organisational performance, including, for example, transaction cost theory, agency theory, resource dependence theory, behavioural theory and institutional theory. Re¯ecting on the past decade we conclude that the resource-based view has become the dominant theory in the debate on strategic HRM and on how human resources and related HR practices can have an effect on ® rm performance. In the resource-based view (eg Wernerfelt, 1984;Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991) the emphasis is on gaining sustainable competitive advantage by means of effective and ef® cient utilisation of the resources of an organisation.Resource-based theory led to a change in strategic management thinking from aǹ outside-in' approach ± with an emphasis on external, industry-based competitive issues (Porter, 1980) ± to an `inside-out' approach (Baden-Fuller and Stopford, 1994), in which internal resources constitute the starting point for und erst andi ng

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol15, no 4, pages 68-83The last decade of empirical research on the added value of HRM, also known as the 'HRM and performance' debate, demonstrates evidence that H R M does matter (Huselid, 1995;Guest et al, 2003;. Unfortunately, the relationships are often statistically weak and the remlts ambiguous. This article reviews and attempts to extend the theoretical and methodological issues in this debate. Its aim is to build an agenda for future research in this area. A brief overview of achievements to date is followed by the theoretical and methodological issues related to what constitutes HRM, what is meant by the concept of perfomzance and the nature ofthe link between these two. In the final section, it is argued that research designs should start from a multi-dimensional concept of pe$rmance, including the perceptions ofemployees; and build on the premise of H R systems as an enabling device for a whole range of strategic options. This implies a reversal of the strategy-HRM linkage. mpirical results on HRM and performance have been presented in a range of special issues of international academic journals such as the Academy of E Management Journal, the lnternational Journal of Human Resource Management and, of course, Human Resource Management Journal. The empirical results suggest the added value of HR interventions. However, there are still a number of unresolved issues.In 1997 Guest argued that there was a need for (1) theory on HRM, (2) theory on performance, and (3) theory on how the two are linked (Guest, 1997). Eight years later we observe only modest progress on those three fundamental issues. Boselie et al (2005) conducted an exploratory analysis and overview of the linkages between HRM and performance in 104 empirical articles published in prominent international refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Their findings demonstrated a deficiency in the literature regarding alternative theories on the concept of HRM, the concept of performance, and on how the two are linked. Strategic contingency theory, AM0 theory' and the resource-based view appear to be the most popular theories applied in the 104 articles, but in most cases it is not clear how these theories link HRM and performance. Hence, we need to turn back to Guest's (1997) plea for theoretical foundation of HRM, performance and the link between the two and ask ourselves three questions:0 What is HRM? 0 What is performance? 0 What is the nature of the link between HRM and performance?Based on these three headings J questions, we will be able to categorise the still unresolved issues and explore possible avenues for research in the future.

Le management est confronté au défi lancé aux organisations quand elles doivent définir, mesurer et stimuler la performance des salariés avec pour objectif ultime d'améliorer la performance organisationnelle. La gestion des performances implique différents niveaux d'analyse et est manifestement reliée à l'évaluation des performances et aux thèmes relevant du management stratégique des ressources humaines (MRH). Cet article présente un modèle convenant à la gestion des performances qui combine des perspectives issues du MRH stratégique et des psychologies organisationelle et du travail. Le modèle intègre des éléments de différents niveaux et enrichit les modèles antérieurs en prenant explicitement en compte la perception des salariés, le rôle des supérieurs directs et une causalité qui peut être inversée. On présente enfin les défis que les futures recherches devront affronter.Performance management deals with the challenge organisations face in defining, measuring, and stimulating employee performance with the ultimate goal of improving organisational performance. Thus, performance management involves multiple levels of analysis and is clearly linked to the topics studied in strategic human resource management (HRM) as well as performance appraisal. This paper presents a model for performance management combining insights from strategic HRM and work and organisational psychology. The model incorporates multi-level elements, and adds to previous models by explicitly incorporating employee perceptions, the role of direct supervisors, and possible reversed causality. Challenges for future research are also presented.

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