协作型HPWS及运行机制研究——有调节的中介效应

The Research in Collaborative High Performance Work Systems and Its Operational Mechanism:Moderated Mediation Model

当组织内外部环境的快速变化、任务高相依性成为新常态,协调流畅性决定了组织管理成败的关键,组织必须开发能提升成员间关系的高绩效工作系统(HPWS),但传统HPWS仅聚焦提高员工技能和动机,导致HPWS无法发挥其应有的潜力而以失败而告终。本文从关系性协调理论出发,通过76家民营企业228份上下级配对的管理人员现场问卷调查,运用有调节的中介效应的统计建模方法,提出并验证协作型HPWS通过关系性协调,最终影响组织绩效的过程机制,同时验证了成本领先战略对HPWS与关系性协调间关系的调节效应。研究结果为夯实与推进以关系路径为因果关系链的人力资源实践对组织绩效作用过程机制的观点提供了有力的研究证据,也丰富和推动了SHRM领域在组织协调管理方面的理论研究进展,为未来人力资源策略与组织战略匹配研究提供了新思路。

With the private sector occupying an increasingly important and fundamental position in our national economy, private firms in China find themselves in an unprecedented fast pace of development. In recent years, the business environment for Chinese private firms has undergone fluctuations. In responding to this many firms seek transformation and upgrading proactively and adapt the cost-leadership competitive strategy. This, together with the fact that private firms often face inter-related, highly uncertain, and demanding tasks, make relational coordination within organizations a key factor to business success. Organizations need to develop high performance work systems （HPWS） that effectively enhance interpersonal work relations. Currently, researchers are able to identify HPWSs that drive relational coordination, but they hold very different views as to what practical elements HPWSs are com- prised of. The argument that HPWS is fitted to cost-leadership strategy is supported by a handful of case studies, but there is a clear lack of external validity. For these reasons, managerial practioners hold suspicious views to the prac- ticeability of HPWS. In face of this, this study aims to clarify some theoretical ambiguities related to HPWS, and to provide sugges- tions to HPWS＇ managerial application. The study uses relational coordination as its basic theoretical frame- work. Drawing from 228 on-site questionnaires collected in 76 private firms, and using moderated mediation statisti- cal modelling,the study tests the hypothesis that collaborative HPWS affects organizational performance through the mediation of relational coordination. The study also confirms that cost-leadership strategy meditates the relation be- tween HPWS and relational coordination. The study therefore provides important evidence that good human resource practices affect organizational performance in direct ways. This study makes three contributions to existent literature. First, by viewing HPWS from an integrated and sys- tematic angle and borrowing from theories of relational resources, the study sketches a causal mechanism in relation to HPWS, encompassing such factors as organizational performance and cost-leadership strategy. This contributes to our current understandings of the antecedents and consequences of HPWS. Secondly, the study also offers new in- sights to the body of literature within strategic human resource management that examines the fitness between organ- izational strategies and HPWS. The study suggests,on the one hand,that the designing of HPWS needs to take into consideration not only the fitness between organizational strategies and HPWS, but also the fitness between HPWS and its operating business environment. On the other hand, the study finds, among other things, that relational HPWS leads to cost-leadership. This is essentially the same conclusion to control-based HPWS research. However, this is more than just a confirmation of current knowledge,for it suggests that HPWS is open to investigations from different theoretical angles. Thirdly, the study also lends robust external validity to existing case studies on HPWS. By using on-site questionnaire and valid statistical methods, the study makes an important methodological contribution to the existent body of literature on HPWS. The study has important managerial implications. It helps private firms in the mid of transformation and upgra- ding by emphasizing the importance of organizational relational resources and how such resources play vital roles in enhancing collaborative effectiveness. The study offers practical guidance to managers who wish to initiate collabora- tive management.