High performance work practices in small firms: a resource-poverty and strategic decision-making perspective

Brigitte Kroon (), Karina Voorde () and Jules Timmers ()

Small Business Economics, 2013, vol. 41, issue 1, 91 pages

Abstract: High performance work practices (HPWPs) are human resource management practices aimed at stimulating employee and organisational performance. The application of HPWPs is not widespread in small organisations. We examine whether the implementation of coherent bundles of HPWPs (aimed at employee ability, employee motivation or at the opportunity to perform) depends on the scarcity of resources, as reflected in the size of the company, and on strategic decision-making in small firms related to the owner’s expertise and attitudes. In our research, a total of 211 employees from 45 small organisations were asked to rate the presence of HPWPs in their organisation. These averaged perceptions were linked to information provided by the owner–managers on the size of their firm and their own expertise and attitudes. The findings support that smaller but coherent bundles of HPWPs can be found in small organisations and that the implementation of these bundles depends on available resources, strategic decision-making and the combination of the two. These findings highlight the need to integrate the notions of resource poverty and strategic decision-making to understand the uptake of bundles of HPWPs within small firms. Copyright The Author(s) 2013

Keywords: High performance work system; Entrepreneurial orientation; Small firms; Human resource management; Resource poverty; Strategic decision making; Best-practice awareness; Innovative HR vision; D22; D89; L26; M12; M51; M52; M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11187-012-9425-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:41:y:2013:i:1:p:71-91

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-012-9425-0

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().