IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp1097.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

HRM and Workplace Motivation: Incremental and Threshold Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Bryson
  • Michael White

Abstract

The HRM-performance linkage often invokes an assumption of increased employee commitment to the organization and other positive effects of a motivational type. We present a theoretical framework in which motivational effects of HRM are conditional on its intensity, utilizing especially the idea of HRM 'bundling'. We then analyse the association between HRM practices and employees' organisational commitment (OC) and intrinsic job satisfaction (IJS). HRM practices have significantly positive relationships with OC and IJS chiefly at high levels of implementation, but with important distinctions between the domain-level analysis (comprising groups of practices for specific domains such as employee development) and the across-domain or HRM-system level. Findings support a threshold interpretation of the link between HRM domains and employee motivation, but at the system-level both incremental and threshold models receive some support.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Bryson & Michael White, 2011. "HRM and Workplace Motivation: Incremental and Threshold Effects," CEP Discussion Papers dp1097, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1097.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nick Bloom & Tobias Kretschmer & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Are family-friendly workplace practices a valuable firm resource?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 343-367, April.
    2. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    3. Harvie Ramsay & Dora Scholarios & Bill Harley, 2000. "Employees and High‐Performance Work Systems: Testing inside the Black Box," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 501-531, December.
    4. Olivier Herrbach & Karim Mignonac, 2004. "How Organizational Image Affects Employee Attitudes," Post-Print halshs-00006024, HAL.
    5. David E. Guest & Jonathan Michie & Neil Conway & Maura Sheehan, 2003. "Human Resource Management and Corporate Performance in the UK," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 291-314, June.
    6. James L. Price, 1997. "Handbook of organizational measurement," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(4/5/6), pages 305-558, June.
    7. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bryson, Alex & Clark, Andrew E. & Freeman, Richard B. & Green, Colin P., 2016. "Share capitalism and worker wellbeing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 151-158.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alex Bryson & Michael White, 2011. "HRM and Workplace Motivation: Incremental and Threshold Effects," CEP Discussion Papers dp1097, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Marsden, David & Cañibano, Almudena, 2009. "Participation in organisations: economic approaches," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 25167, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Michael White & Alex Bryson, 2018. "HPWS in the Public Sector: Are There Mutual Gains?," DoQSS Working Papers 18-10, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    4. White, Michael & Bryson, Alex, 2013. "Positive employee attitudes: how much human resource management do you need?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51167, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Ludivine Martin, 2020. "How to retain motivated employees in their jobs?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 41(4), pages 910-953, November.
    6. Surhan Cam & Serap Palaz, 2023. "Mutual interests management with a purposive approach: Evidence from the Turkish shipyards for an amorphous impact model between (subjective) well‐being and performance," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 40-70, January.
    7. Alex Bryson & Lucy Stokes & David Wilkinson, 2023. "Is pupil attainment higher in well-managed schools?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 129-144, January.
    8. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," CEP Discussion Papers dp1109, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Wei Chi & Richard B. Freeman & Morris M. Kleiner, 2011. "Adoption and Termination of Employee Involvement Programs," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 25(1), pages 45-62, March.
    10. Bryson, Alex & White, Michael, 2017. "HRM and Small-Firm Employee Motivation: Before and after the Recession," IZA Discussion Papers 10737, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Böckerman, Petri & Bryson, Alex & Ilmakunnas, Pekka, 2012. "Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 660-680.
    12. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    13. John Forth & Alex Bryson, 2019. "Management practices and SME performance," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(4), pages 527-558, September.
    14. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2015. "Does Management Matter in schools?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 647-674, May.
    15. Andreas Georgiadis & Christos N. Pitelis, 2010. "The Interrelationship between HR, Strategy and Profitability in Service SMEs: Empirical Evidence from the UK Tourism Hospitality and Leisure Sector," CEP Discussion Papers dp0972, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Monteiro, Natália P. & Straume, Odd Rune & Valente, Marieta, 2021. "When does remote electronic access (not) boost productivity? Longitudinal evidence from Portugal," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    17. Adel Ben Youssef & Ludivine Martin & Nessrine Omrani, 2014. "The Complementarities between Information Technologies Use, New Organizational Practices and Employees' Contextual Performance: Evidence from Europe in 2005 and 2010," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(4), pages 493-504.
    18. Ferreira, Pedro & Porto, Nelida & Portela, Marta, 2010. "Women's participation in high performance work practices: a comparative analysis of Portugal and Spain," MPRA Paper 36404, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2010.
    19. Natália P. Monteiro & Odd Rune Straume & Marieta Valente, 2019. "Does Remote Work Improve or Impair Firm Labour Productivity? Longitudinal Evidence from Portugal," CESifo Working Paper Series 7991, CESifo.
    20. Michael White & Alex Bryson, 2019. "The Impact of High-Performance Work Systems on Employees: A Sectoral Comparison," DoQSS Working Papers 19-04, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human resource management; high performance; organizational commitment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1097. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.