دانلود رایگان نقش استفاده از نیروی کار زن و مقدمه کار انعطاف پذیر

abstract

High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS) are commonly related to higher rates of employee retention. However, variations in such rates arising from differences in workforce gender composition have hardly been studied, so the aim here is to address these issues based on a sample of British workplaces. It is hypothesized that HPWS have reduced retention outcomes in highly feminized workplaces as compared to less feminized ones. An exploration is also made of how HPWS operate in conjunction with the provision of Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) to affect retention across both types of workplaces. The results suggest that workforce gender composition does indeed matter when it comes to the relationship between HPWS and retention. Contrary to expectations, the provision of FWAs alongside HPWS appears to be a less-than-optimal approach to retain employees, particularly in highly feminized workplaces.

Discussion and conclusions

Given the increasing popularity of HPWS, it is important to understand the dynamics behind these systems (Posthuma et al., 2013). This study attempts to fill the gap in our understanding of how HPWS operate according to workforce gender composition and parallel investments in FWAs. In particular, we have investigated how the retention outcomes of HPWS vary in workplaces with different degrees of feminization, and whether an employer's provision of FWAs interacts with HPWS to affect retention in highly feminized workplaces more so than it does in less feminized ones. Our findings indicate that the retention capacity of HPWS is circumscribed to less feminized workplaces; that is, we found that HPWS are ineffective retention tools in contexts with a higher proportion of women. Hence the conventional view that HPWS generate more stimulating work environments, thereby reinforcing employee attachment to the firm (e.g., Huselid, 1995), does not appear to hold true for these latter contexts. We have argued that the loss of HPWS retention capacity in highly feminized workplaces is the result of both the high-demand nature of such systems and the role of women in society. Indeed, although HPWS may help to build a more attractive work environment for employees, they may also cause job pressure, longer working hours, and negative job-tohome spillover (White et al., 2003; Wood et al., 2012). These lateral effects may become overwhelming for women, given their responsibility for most household duties (Adams et al., 2014; Crompton et al., 2005), making HPWS less appealing to them. These findings have theoretical implications. Consistent with research adopting a contingency view on the HPWS-performance relationship (e.g., Datta et al., 2005; Stirpe et al., 2014), our study helps to gain further insights into the organizational circumstances under which HPWS may provide valuable initiatives for managing the workforce. While previous research has analyzed several firmlevel moderators of the effectiveness of HPWS (e.g., size and strategy), our study is one of the first to specifically investigate workforce characteristics that impinge upon a particular outcome of such systems (i.e., retention). By so doing, we thus respond to the call made by Peccei et al. (2013) to develop research on employeelevel factors that intervene in the HRM-performance link.