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The "suite" smell of success: complementary personnel practices and firm performance

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Abstract

How do personnel practices affect firm performance?To examine this issue we use a panel of over 1,500 New Zealand firms, drawn from a diverse range of industries.The panel comprises respondents to official surveys of management practices in 2001 and 2005. These surveys ask a wide range of comparable qualitative questions covering organisational practices including human resource management (HRM). To this panel, we link longitudinal firm performance data from Statistics New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database. We find that suites of complementary HRM-related practices impact positively on firm productivity and wages; effects on employee turnover depend on the practices considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Fabling & Arthur Grimes, 2009. "The "suite" smell of success: complementary personnel practices and firm performance," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2009/13, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzb:nzbdps:2009/13
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    Cited by:

    1. Fabling, Richard & Mare, David C, 2015. "Production function estimation using New Zealand’s Longitudinal Business Database," Motu Working Papers 290585, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    2. Richard Fabling & Lynda Sanderson, 2016. "A Rough Guide to New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database (2nd edition)," Motu Working Papers 16_03, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    3. David C. Maré & Dean R. Hyslop & Richard Fabling, 2017. "Firm productivity growth and skill," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 302-326, September.
    4. Richard Fabling & David C. Maré, 2016. "Firm-Level Hiring Difficulties: Persistence, Business Cycle And Local Labour Market Influences," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 179-210, June.
    5. Fabling, Richard & Grimes, Arthur & Mare, David C., 2012. "Performance Pay Systems and the Gender Wage Gap," Motu Working Papers 291411, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    6. Francis Greene, 2012. "Should the focus of publicly provided small business assistance be on start-ups or growth businesses?," Occasional Papers 12/2, Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand.
    7. Fabling, Richard & Sanderson, Lynda, 2013. "Exporting and firm performance: Market entry, investment and expansion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 422-431.
    8. Grimes, Arthur & MacCulloch, Robert & McKay, Fraser, 2015. "Indigenous Belief in a Just World: New Zealand Māori and other Ethnicities Compared," Motu Working Papers 290586, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    9. Fabling, Richard, 2011. "Keeping it Together: Tracking Firms in New Zealand’s Longitudinal Business Database," Motu Working Papers 291440, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    10. Fabling, Richard & Grimes, Arthur & Timar, Levente, 2014. "Natural selection: Firm performance following the Canterbury earthquakes," Motu Working Papers 290606, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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