High Commitment Work Systems in Chinese Organizations a Preliminary Measure
Forthcoming on Management and Organization Review Please do not cite without consent of the authors
High Commitment Work Systems in Chinese Organizations: A Preliminary Measure
Zhixing Xiao China Europe International Business School 699 Hongfeng Road, Shanghai 201206, P. R. China xzhixing@ceibs.edu
Ingmar Björkman Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration Post Box 479 00101 Helsinki, Finland Ingmar.bjorkman@hanken.fi
May 20, 2006
High Commitment Work Systems in Chinese Organizations: A Preliminary Measure
Abstract The concept of a high commitment work system (HCWS) has so far mostly been used in the West to study the relationship between a firm’s work systems and organizational performance. In this paper, we introduce a preliminary measure of HCWS in People’s Republic of China based on the definition of Baron and Kreps (1999). In study 1, we tested the measure by surveying 442 employees in China’s information technology (IT) industry. In study 2, we re-tested the same measure from the perspective of human resource (HR) executives in 126 foreign-invested companies. The analyses not only provided some evidence for the construct validity of this preliminary measure of a high commitment work system, but also produced some interesting results that can only be understood in relation to the history and institutional backgrounds of Chinese organizations.
Key words: high commitment work system, China, scale development
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INTRODUCTION Research on the relationship between firms’ human resource systems and organizational performance in recent years has seen some convergence on the concept of high commitment work system—HCWS (Arthur, 1994; Baron and Kreps, 1999; Pfeffer, 1997; Walton, 1985). HCWS refers to a system of human resource management practices that aim at eliciting employees’ commitment to the organization (Walton, 1985). A large number of empirical studies have reported a positive relationship between HCWS and organizational
High Commitment Work Systems in Chinese Organizations: A Preliminary Measure
Zhixing Xiao China Europe International Business School 699 Hongfeng Road, Shanghai 201206, P. R. China xzhixing@ceibs.edu
Ingmar Björkman Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration Post Box 479 00101 Helsinki, Finland Ingmar.bjorkman@hanken.fi
May 20, 2006
High Commitment Work Systems in Chinese Organizations: A Preliminary Measure
Abstract The concept of a high commitment work system (HCWS) has so far mostly been used in the West to study the relationship between a firm’s work systems and organizational performance. In this paper, we introduce a preliminary measure of HCWS in People’s Republic of China based on the definition of Baron and Kreps (1999). In study 1, we tested the measure by surveying 442 employees in China’s information technology (IT) industry. In study 2, we re-tested the same measure from the perspective of human resource (HR) executives in 126 foreign-invested companies. The analyses not only provided some evidence for the construct validity of this preliminary measure of a high commitment work system, but also produced some interesting results that can only be understood in relation to the history and institutional backgrounds of Chinese organizations.
Key words: high commitment work system, China, scale development
2
INTRODUCTION Research on the relationship between firms’ human resource systems and organizational performance in recent years has seen some convergence on the concept of high commitment work system—HCWS (Arthur, 1994; Baron and Kreps, 1999; Pfeffer, 1997; Walton, 1985). HCWS refers to a system of human resource management practices that aim at eliciting employees’ commitment to the organization (Walton, 1985). A large number of empirical studies have reported a positive relationship between HCWS and organizational
References: Pfeffer, 1994 a Delery and Doty, 1996 Youndt et al., 1996 Walton, 1985 a Huselid, 1995 MacDuf fie, 1995 Arthur, 1994 Guthrie, 2001 and Kreps, 1999 a