The Strategic Approach to the High-performance Paradigm: A European Perspective

High Performance Work Practices: One best-way or no best-way

“…Universalists researches failed to determine how HPWPs can directly achieve these two objectives. They lack concrete testable proofs to back their claim as argued by Ferreira et al (2012). Some of the empirical studies (Neumark and Cappelli, 1999;Ferreira et al, 2012) rather revealed a negative, weak or no effect between high performance work practices and organizations' performance.…”

“…They lack concrete testable proofs to back their claim as argued by Ferreira et al (2012). Some of the empirical studies (Neumark and Cappelli, 1999;Ferreira et al, 2012) rather revealed a negative, weak or no effect between high performance work practices and organizations' performance. Part of this could have been as a result of the inconsistencies surrounding HPWPs both in theory and in practice.…”

“…The findings revealed five bundles of HPWPs which are adopted by European companies which are; representation of employees and training, rewards on profit sharing, teamwork, ownership rewards, and communication. Ferreira et al (2012) suggested that indeed there is a European approach towards the adoption of HPWPs as opposed to the Universalists paradigm. And, that there was an absence of a positive effect between HPWPs and firms' performance.…”

“…What is rather obtainable is a -best fit‖ model which emphasizes aligning HR practices to suit the structure and context of organizations (Armstrong, 2009). Supporters of this stance (Godard, 2004;Kalleberg et al, 2006;Ferreira et al, 2012) claimed that there are no universally accepted HR practices which are capable of providing superior performance in organizations. In as much as -there is room for differences of emphasis within the literature on HPWS‖ (Ramsay et al, 2000 p. 503), the findings from this paper imply that: i.…”

“…This was due to differences in some key contextual and environmental variables such as socio-cultural, political and other demographic factors which were found in the European business environment. This probably urged Ferreira et al (2012) to address the dialogue between HPWPs and firms' performance from a European point of view. And, they confirmed that the types of HPWPs adopted by Europeans organizations and the adoption processes are quite different from those practiced by the American firms.…”