Mutual Gains

The study examines the role of trade unions ivn organizational decision-making, focusing on the University of Dodoma. It highlights that trade unions represent worker interests and serve as critical stakeholders in discussions about organizational change. Active unions lead to higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover rates, increased productivity, and better working conditions. The research design used was a case study, with a sample size of 100 respondents from the University of Dodoma's three colleges. Data was analyzed using descriptive, regression, and correlation methods.

Understanding the relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and organisational performance is becoming increasingly important to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. In the current challenging economic climate, organisations are facing major challenges to do more with less. Thus, the investments in resources such as people are increasingly under scrutiny to provide returns on investment. HPWS have been positively associated with organisational performance, but organisations are not reaping the full benefits of HPWS. Both managers as well as HR professionals can gain from a deeper understanding of HPWS and the link to organisational performance. The research investigated HPWS through the use of semi-structured interviews. The ten respondents were all highly experienced, senior HR professionals who provided valuable insights and opinions into the complex relationship between HPWS and organisational performance. The valuable insights and experiences, shared by the respondents, allowed for the development of a management model of the organisational factors that influence the effectiveness of HPWS. The results of the research could contribute to managers and HR professionals in contributing to the management of HPWS.

Understanding the relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and organisational performance is becoming increasingly important to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. In the current challenging economic climate, organisations are facing major challenges to do more with less. Thus, the investments in resources such as people are increasingly under scrutiny to provide returns on investment. HPWS have been positively associated with organisational performance, but organisations are not reaping the full benefits of HPWS. Both managers as well as HR professionals can gain from a deeper understanding of HPWS and the link to organisational performance. The research investigated HPWS through the use of semi-structured interviews. The ten respondents were all highly experienced, senior HR professionals who provided valuable insights and opinions into the complex relationship between HPWS and organisational performance. The valuable insights and experiences, shared by the respondents, allowed for the development of a management model of the organisational factors that influence the effectiveness of HPWS. The results of the research could contribute to managers and HR professionals in contributing to the management of HPWS.

Purpose of the article: Employee engagement, which has been acclaimed as one of the key determinants of the organisational performance, largely depends on employees' dispositions. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of high performance work practices (HPWPs) on employee engagement. Methods: The study is based on a cross-sectional survey which examined a representative sample of three hundred and ninety-one employees (391). Six participating banks were selected randomly while the respondents were judgmentally selected among the banks. Structured questionnaires were provided to the sample the respondents and the data gathered were analysed using SPSS version 20. Scientific aim: This study seeks to provide scientific evidence of the efficacy of using a bundle of complementary human resource (HR) practices rather than single HR practice to engage skilled employees. The study revealed that a combination of all the four selected HPWPs as a bundle, significantly predicted employee engagement. However, only employee training and development as a single HR practice variable, significantly predicted employee engagement, while employee empowerment, performance appraisal and performance related pay were insignificant. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for human resource (HR) managers to understand and apply the most productive bundle of HR practices in nurturing employee engagement for desirable organisational outcomes. Based on the findings, a bundle of HR practices, which have complementary qualities, is imperative for employee engagement. This study has contributed to highlighting the organisational factors fostering employee engagement and ameliorating employees' and organisational performance in Nigeria.

This paper seeks to build on the work done in earlier ILO publications by offering a compilation of good practices in dispute prevention and dispute resolution in public services. The intention is to showcase an array of mechanisms, mostly interconnected, that governments and social partners around the world have developed to minimize and resolve disputes – and especially interest disputes in collective bargaining – in the public services. Specifically, the paper aims to identify approaches and practices around the world which have enabled unions and public sector employers to engage in negotiations regarding wages and conditions of work on a fair footing and with minimal disruption to public services.

This paper has been written to support the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board Mission on Business Models and Workplace Innovation. The framing of this Mission and the content of this review paper draws heavily on the work of SCER, and of Findlay, Lindsay and colleagues, on business models, job quality, workplace innovation and fair work, as well as on the wider research evidence base. The mission is framed in terms of promoting, adopting, implementing and supporting progressive business models and workplace innovation that can simultaneously deliver fair work alongside enhanced business performance and competitiveness, driving national productivity improvements and delivering genuinely inclusive growth that benefits individuals, businesses and society. This briefing paper reviews some important literatures in the context of the holistic framework outlined above, focussing on how businesses organise to create value and on workplace strategies and practices and their potential to d...

This paper has been written to support the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board Mission on Business Models and Workplace Innovation. The framing of this Mission and the content of this review paper draws heavily on the work of SCER, and of Findlay, Lindsay and colleagues, on business models, job quality, workplace innovation and fair work, as well as on the wider research evidence base. The mission is framed in terms of promoting, adopting, implementing and supporting progressive business models and workplace innovation that can simultaneously deliver fair work alongside enhanced business performance and competitiveness, driving national productivity improvements and delivering genuinely inclusive growth that benefits individuals, businesses and society. This briefing paper reviews some important literatures in the context of the holistic framework outlined above, focussing on how businesses organise to create value and on workplace strategies and practices and their potential to d...

This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than four-fifths offering unions greater involvement in employers’ decisions. Partnership agreements continue the procedural bias of traditional British collective agreements representing the lowest common denominator of agreement — unions work towards the success of the enterprise in return for involvement in employers’ decisions. The implications for New Labour’s Third Way approach and the policy of encouraging voluntary partnership agreements to promote fairness at work are considered.

High Performance Work Practices are those human resource management practices which help the organisation to hire, develop and retain high-performing employees and thereby create sustainable competitive advantage. The primary purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between High Performance Work Practices and employee outcomes of Employee Resilience and Employee Engagement with respect to workforce in Indian IT sector using Structural Equation Modelling. The study gains its relevance owing to the fact that IT sector requires workforce that consistently helps the organisation transcend in the hyper-competitive world. It also examines the mediating role of Knowledge Skills Abilities & Abilities Motivation Opportunity (KSA&AMO) between High Performance Work Practices and employee outcomes. A model has been proposed to identify the relationship between the variables. Primary data was collected from 599 employees in Indian Information Technology sector. The technique of Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse the relationship between High Performance Work Practices, KSA&AMO, Employee Resilience and Employee Engagement. The paper supports the positive impact of High Performance Work Practices on employee outcomes of employee resilience and employee engagement. A partial mediation of KSA&AMO was established between High Performance Work Practices and employee outcomes of Employee Resilience and Employee Engagement.

Oil and gas are essential components of modern, industrialized civilization, and as societies and economies grow, so does their oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry has revolutionized human lives, improving our standard of living. The industry's products ...

Analysis of a comparative dataset of growth factors wi thin British and French sm all firm s hi ghlights clear differences in the adoption level and type of HPWPs and their association with performance. These findings have consequences for international HRM and the further study of different institutional settings. 1. INTRODUCTION Over the past decades the underlying principle of the role that human resource management (HRM) policies and practices can play within firms is that those organisations that select and implement specific HRM policies and practices are able to develop sustained competitive advantage (Boxall, 2007). This premise, coupled with some early influential studies that attempt to explain how and why some firm s may perform better than others (for example see Appelbaum et al; 2000; Huselid 1995 etc.), has led to a burgeoning range of empirical works on the performance enhancing effects of HRM. This preoccupation wi th high performance, often referred to as the 'high-performance paradigm', has developed into a dominant theme wi thin the discipline (see Delaney & Godard, 2001; Fleetwood & Hesketh, 2008) as authors continue to search for the 'holy grail'. On e of the central concepts wi thin the paradigm, Hi gh-Pe rformance Work Systems (HPWS), advocates that firms can implement appropriate HR arrangements and that it is these that contribute to success (Godard, 2004). Such an approach em phasises the integration of core processes such as strategy, innovation, flexibility and HRM (Paauwe, 2004). With HPWS having been studied primarily as a model for large firms, more recently interest has grown as to its application at the small firm level. Whilst sm all firm s have been shown to exhibit low levels of uptake of HRM practices, it has been posited that they may well be better positioned to reap the performance enhancing effects of greater levels of HRM and as s uch represent an unrealised opportunity (Way, 2002). Despite this, research on how sm all firm s utilise HRM policies and practices for performance and growth is an underdeveloped entity (Drummond & Stone, 2007). Furthermore, it is questioned whether firm s should focus on their internal capacity (a resourcebased perspective) or take into account their environment when developing a competitive advantage (Boxall, 2003). T he importance of understanding firms' institutional settings, and how such mechanism s affect their a ctions and outcomes, has been recently renewed through theories such as New In stitutionalism , with the opinion that it is these forces that drive homogeneity amongst firm s (Paauwe & Bo selie, 2003). New institutionalism is seen as a supplem ent to, rather than replacement for, the re source-based view of the firm (Paauwe & Boselie, 2003), bridging the gap between traditional 'insideout' and 'outside-in' approaches. It is apparent that these issues are of particular interest to national governments wi th sm all firms being recognised for playing a ke y role as e mployment, value and innovation generators (BERR, 2008). The purpose of this study is to undertake a comparative investigation into the incidence, nature and performance effects of HPWS in small firms. The central tenet running throughout the paper is how sm all firms utilise HPWS within differing institutional settings. To explore this we draw on a comparative sample of 348 British and French small firms. The paper is divided into four sections. Fi rst, we give a brief overview of the literature on the high performance debate in small firms and highlight particular differences in regard to their institutional settings. Second, we report on the study's methodology and the analysis methods employed. Third, we re veal our findings. We complete the paper with a discussion, limitations of the research design and suggestions for further research. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Human Resource Management and Performance The HRM discipline posits a plethora of practices and policies t hat firm s can utilise in the management and development of intellectual capital (Wall & Wo od, 2005). Descriptions of HRM range from the simplistic 'hard' and 'soft' dichotomies (Forster & Whipp 1995) to various models that aim to ta ke HRM to a more macro, strategically oriented level (Wright & Bo swell, 2002). For the sake of space thi s paper will not explore each specific model (For a list of theories/models see Pa auwe (2004), Fl eetwood & Hesketh, 2008). M ore re cently, the concept of High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS) has been utilised from many theoretical perspectives, despite Paauwe's (2004) argument that HPWS mainly fall into the less

The article discusses the enactment of a strategic partnership undertaken by a large, multi-site company and several trade unions. The enterprise aimed to institute highly engaged practices of employee and management voice to create a collaborative culture throughout the organization. The study finds that five years since the inception of the project of institutional change, considerable challenges to its embedding and effectiveness remain. It also finds that particular characteristics of the partnership propose resource generation for addressing those challenges and progressing collaborative relations to mutual benefit. Substantive actor effort and organizational learning generate capacity for new relationships. That includes activation of moral capital including toleration, patience, mutual respect, reciprocity and trust.

Purpose of the article: Employee engagement, which has been acclaimed as one of the key determinants of the organisational performance, largely depends on employees' dispositions. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of high performance work practices (HPWPs) on employee engagement. Methods: The study is based on a cross-sectional survey which examined a representative sample of three hundred and ninety-one employees (391). Six participating banks were selected randomly while the respondents were judgmentally selected among the banks. Structured questionnaires were provided to the sample the respondents and the data gathered were analysed using SPSS version 20. Scientific aim: This study seeks to provide scientific evidence of the efficacy of using a bundle of complementary human resource (HR) practices rather than single HR practice to engage skilled employees. The study revealed that a combination of all the four selected HPWPs as a bundle, significantly predicted employee engagement. However, only employee training and development as a single HR practice variable, significantly predicted employee engagement, while employee empowerment, performance appraisal and performance related pay were insignificant. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for human resource (HR) managers to understand and apply the most productive bundle of HR practices in nurturing employee engagement for desirable organisational outcomes. Based on the findings, a bundle of HR practices, which have complementary qualities, is imperative for employee engagement. This study has contributed to highlighting the organisational factors fostering employee engagement and ameliorating employees' and organisational performance in Nigeria.

Companies aiming to increase their firm performance implement specific practices known as High Performance Work Systems (HPWS). Uncertainty remains, however, about the structures included in them. The main purpose of this paper is to analysis the difference between implementing specific HPWP separately or as a HPWS, and their effect on performance aspects, using the Spanish subsample of the European Manufacturing Survey. The results show that these firms' implementation rates are relatively low compared to the European average, despite over 50% of respondents implementing some of the practices studied (individually or as a bundle).

It is well established that many HR practices aimed at increasing employees' psychological wellbeing (PWB) and organisational performance conflict and even contradict one another. We address this long-standing issue by undertaking an innovative integrative literature review using the paradox metatheory as a lens. Unlike the contingency approach, a paradox perspective deems real-world tensions as normal, which can also be harnessed, and benefit employees and the organisation. We make three contributions; firstly, we identify contradictory employee PWB and organisational performance HR practices; secondly, we offer a solution in addressing the inherent tension between PWB and organisational performance by developing a new sensemaking conceptual framework; and thirdly, we offer a more nuanced perspective of prevailing arguments by distinguishing endogenous factors that organisations can influence to enhance the synergies between employee PWB and organisational performance HR practices. The intended impact of this paper is to instigate a paradigm shift and shape a new trajectory of thinking about how employee PWB and organisational performance practices can exist side-by-side.

Sumber daya manusia merupakan faktor terpenting dalam organisasi. Dengan SDM yang potensial dan bertalenta maka tujuan organisasi akan tercapai dengan baik. Faktor sumber daya manusia menjadi perhatian khusus, sebab manusia pada hakikatnya merupakan makhluk yang dinamis dan mempunyai latar belakang yang berbeda-beda.. Dengan perbedaan itu, maka perlu adanya ketepatan keputusan dalam hal pengaturan pekerjaan, tugas, dan tanggung jawab yang tepat juga.  Maka dalam hal ini desain pekerjaan menjadi sangat penting peranannya. Melalui desain pekerjaan yang telah dibuat, diharapkan setiap pegawai dapat menyelesaikan pekerjaan dengan baik dan terus meningkatkan motivasi kerja pegawai. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian asosiatif.. Perusahaan yang dibahas dalam jurnal ini yaitu PT Kereta Api Indonesia (persero) UPT Balai Yasa Manggarai. Dari hasil penelitian yang dilakukan, dapat diperoleh informasi bahwa PT Kereta Api Indonesia (persero) UPT Balai Yasa Manggarai telah melaksanakan desain pekerjaan sejak lama. Dan terdapat kaitan antara desain pekerjaan dengan motivasi kerja pegawai.
Kata kunci: Desain Pekerjaan, Kinerja Pegawai, , PT KAI

Human integration in cross-border mergers poses challenges to the successful implementation of post-merger processes. Executives often rely on human resource practices to achieve human integration in newly formed organisations. Using an ethnographic study of a merger of four banks in four countries, this article investigates the impact of systemic and integrated human resource practices [i.e., high-performance work practices (HPWPs)] on human integration and how their implementation affects employees' behaviours and attitudes towards post-merger human integration. We find that the implementation of HPWPs, such as communication, employee involvement, and team building, may not always produce the expected effects on human integration; rather, it can have the opposite effects if top management does not closely monitor the immediate results of deploying such practices. Implications for managers dealing with post-mergers suggest that human integration is contingent on four dimensions: origin, content, form, and history of the HPWPs. A. Vasilaki et al.

In this paper, we examine the effect of high performance work practices, job characteristics, and the work environment on workers' views of whether the company helps them balance work and family. There are many ways companies can help workers balance work and family responsibilities. Providing employees with traditional benefits such as health insurance, a pension plan, and paid vacation days can ease family-related burdens. Moreover, formal work/family policies that are implemented by companies, such as flexible ...

The study examines the relationship between high-performance work practices (H-PWPs) and psychological well-being and work-life balance of employees in the Indian Service Sector. This study throws light on the potential dark-sides of H-PWPs, which are portrayed as highly positive by most past researches. We analyzed the effects of strain induced by H-PWPs implementation on psychological well-being and work-life balance of employees randomly selected from Private sector banks in NCR, India. Using a sample of 150 employees, results from correlation, and stepwise regression analyses showed that some of the potential HPWPs like; selective hiring, performance-based pay, high productivity and quality, autonomy and extensive training are strongly associated with psychological ill-health and work-life imbalance. Therefore, organizations have to rethink and pay close attention to balance between the practices that release human potential and that increase the intensity of work.

Oil and gas are essential components of modern, industrialized civilization, and as societies and economies grow, so does their oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry has revolutionized human lives, improving our standard of living. The industry's products ...

The background to this report 1 Chapter 2 The theory of human resource strategy 3 Chapter 3 The empirical literature 17 Chapter 4 Practitioner perspectives Chapter 5 Future research Appendix 1 Detailed reviews of key texts Appendix 2 Current and planned research on HR strategies and business performance in the UK Appendix 3 Analysis of key empirical studies

It is well established that many HR practices aimed at increasing employees' psychological wellbeing (PWB) and organisational performance conflict and even contradict one another. We address this long-standing issue by undertaking an innovative integrative literature review using the paradox metatheory as a lens. Unlike the contingency approach, a paradox perspective deems real-world tensions as normal, which can also be harnessed, and benefit employees and the organisation. We make three contributions; firstly, we identify contradictory employee PWB and organisational performance HR practices; secondly, we offer a solution in addressing the inherent tension between PWB and organisational performance by developing a new sensemaking conceptual framework; and thirdly, we offer a more nuanced perspective of prevailing arguments by distinguishing endogenous factors that organisations can influence to enhance the synergies between employee PWB and organisational performance HR practices. The intended impact of this paper is to instigate a paradigm shift and shape a new trajectory of thinking about how employee PWB and organisational performance practices can exist side-by-side.

The article discusses the enactment of a strategic partnership undertaken by a large, multi-site company and several trade unions. The enterprise aimed to institute highly engaged practices of employee and management voice to create a collaborative culture throughout the organization. The study finds that five years since the inception of the project of institutional change, considerable challenges to its embedding and effectiveness remain. It also finds that particular characteristics of the partnership propose resource generation for addressing those challenges and progressing collaborative relations to mutual benefit. Substantive actor effort and organizational learning generate capacity for new relationships. That includes activation of moral capital including toleration, patience, mutual respect, reciprocity and trust.

This article examines the impact of employer ¯exibility to work-life issues and negative spillover from work to non-work life on the attitudes of software developers. Software workers present an interesting case for work-life balance issues ± Ackroyd et al (2000) designate them the key occupation to examine in future studies of `knowledge workers', and Barrett (2001) states that they are the `vanguard'of new working practices, with the separation of work and life being substantially more `blurred' than for more traditional occupations. Despite this general perception of the work-life boundary, our results show that intrusion of work into private life for this group of workers still has a substantial impact on work-related attitudes. Work-life boundary variables affect trust in the organisation which plays a mediational role in these variables' relationship to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Our results suggest that even within this industry, where employees are relatively individualistic in orientation, highly marketable and unlikely to show attachment to a single organisation, mutual gains for employee and employer can be attained by an accommodating approach to non-work commitments which may lead to greater organisational attachment.

This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than fourfifths offering unions greater involvement in employers' decisions. Partnership agreements continue the procedural bias of traditional British collective agreements representing the lowest common denominator of agreement-unions work towards the success of the enterprise in return for involvement in employers' decisions. The implications for New Labour's Third Way approach and the policy of encouraging voluntary partnership agreements to promote fairness at work are considered.

The article discusses the enactment of a strategic partnership undertaken by a large, multi-site company and several trade unions. The enterprise aimed to institute highly engaged practices of employee and management voice to create a collaborative culture throughout the organization. The study finds that five years since the inception of the project of institutional change, considerable challenges to its embedding and effectiveness remain. It also finds that particular characteristics of the partnership propose resource generation for addressing those challenges and progressing collaborative relations to mutual benefit. Substantive actor effort and organizational learning generate capacity for new relationships. That includes activation of moral capital including toleration, patience, mutual respect, reciprocity and trust.

The concept of employee voice, in its various forms (direct or indirect, individual or collective, formal or informal), emerged in the debate as a fundamental component of modern workplaces (Wilkinson et al., 2014), although the roots of the debate on participation are older (Kaufman, 2020). Participative industrial relations based on shared decision-making processes between managers and workers’ representatives represent a powerful candidate for boosting cooperative and mutually favourable organizational changes (Casey and Delaney, 2019). This special issue welcomes both qualitative and quantitative theory-driven articles, and interdisciplinary approaches combining different literature strands are appreciated.

The article discusses the enactment of a strategic partnership undertaken by a large, multi-site company and several trade unions. The enterprise aimed to institute highly engaged practices of employee and management voice to create a collaborative culture throughout the organization. The study finds that five years since the inception of the project of institutional change, considerable challenges to its embedding and effectiveness remain. It also finds that particular characteristics of the partnership propose resource generation for addressing those challenges and progressing collaborative relations to mutual benefit. Substantive actor effort and organizational learning generate capacity for new relationships. That includes activation of moral capital including toleration, patience, mutual respect, reciprocity and trust.

In order to improve our understanding of mediating variables. This paper examines the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWP) practices and employee attitudes. Using a randomly selected, national population sample, clear evidence was found for a positive relationship between HPWS practices and the attitudinal variables of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, implying that HPWP can provide win win outcomes for employees and employers. However, the study also tests-from an employee perspective-the ‗complementarities thesis' and finds Positive interaction effects among HPWS practices. This strengthens the argument that there are likely to be limits to the positive outcomes of HPWSs for employees. Evidence of sequencing in the employee attitudinal responses to HPWSs was also found, with job satisfaction as the key mediating variable. Regression analysis showed that there is a positive significant relationship between High performance work practices and job satisfaction, and also there is a positive significant relationship between High performance work practices and organizational commitment.

Globalization is changing the markets and environments in which organizations operate and the major trends like managerial innovation, competitors' initiatives, information technology etc have compelled the organizations to undertake and manage the organizational change for survival. It is evident that change management for organizational excellence demands effective utilization of human resources which is indeed a complex task. Even the real life experiences substantiate the assumption that no matter how sophisticated and modern the business activities of the organization may become, it will find it extremely difficult to sustain its growth and effectiveness unless its human resources are complementary to its operations. It has been realized that dynamic people and high performance HR practices can build dynamic and growth oriented organizations by significantly contributing to the effectiveness of the organization.

T wo main approaches to human resource management (HRM) are identified: one focusing on the organisational concern for the relationship between HRM and performance, the other mounting a critique of HRM. It is argued that both pay lip service to, but largely neglect worker reactions to HRM. The case is made for building the worker into the analysis of HRM, on the one hand, by incorporating worker attitudes and behaviour in the study of the HRM-performance relationship, and on the other, by paying serious attention to the association between HRM and worker-related outcomes. Evidence is presented to suggest that worker attitudes and behaviour mediate the HRM-performance relationship and that certain HR practices are associated with higher work and life satisfaction. These practices include job design, direct participation and information provision that are associated with higher performance; but work satisfaction is also associated with equal opportunities, family-friendly and anti-harassment practices. It is suggested that a more worker-friendly HRM can best be applied in the context of a partnership or mutual gains framework.

In this age of high performance, the term ‘performance’ not only inscribes productivity or profitability but also deals with human aspect of work, too. High performance work practices (HPWPs) are largely viewed as a mechanism for value creation and value enhancement of employees, employer and the organisation as well. The present article attempts to access the awareness level of employees of the HPWPs. In all, 35 dimensions of HPWPs were identified by the researchers and the awareness level was assessed on a 5-point scale. The categorisation of HPWPs has been done by applying factor analysis, and the variations in awareness level have been studied by applying t-test. Significant gender variations in employee awareness have emerged on ‘psycho-strengthening HPWPs’, and the sectoral variations in employee awareness have emerged on the ‘employee empowerment HPWPs’. In rest of the HPWPs, no significant variations in employee awareness emerged on any of the basis.

This article assesses the adoption and survival of labour-management partnership agreements in Britain. In contrast to predictions that British employers will avoid partnership agreements, significantly more agreements have been signed than expected with 248 partnership agreements signed between 1990 and 2007. Partnership agreements covered almost ten percent of all British employees in 2007
and one-third of public sector employees. The majority of agreements are now in the public sector as part of government plans to reform the delivery of public services and in the devolved health services of Scotland and Wales as part of the potentially distinctive social democratic approach adopted by the devolved Governments. In contrast to predictions that, once signed, partnership agreements are unlikely to survive, four-fifths (80 percent) of all agreements survived to the close of 2007. Public sector agreements appear particularly robust.

Research in the 1990s on High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) provided a wide range of positive results for organisational performance. Adding to these early studies in the US are similar findings from other countries. However, recent research evidence, especially that coming from the labour process tradition and research projects that look specifically at the impact of lean production on workers, appears to suggest that HPWPs are likely to lead to work intensification and not performance. This current paper examines the relative strengths of the opposing claims. There appears to be evidence of both positive and negative impact on workers. Through the use of two case studies, this paper argues that, when attention is paid to workers’ intrinsic job satisfaction, there are positive outcomes from HPWPs for employees as well as organisations.

This literature review has been prepared as the first stage of a Department of Labour contracted, Future of Work study entitled: Skill needs and worker voice in high performance workplaces: A case study of the dairy industry. The project is situated at what is widely regarded as one of the cutting edges of future of work research: the adoption of high performance (manufacturing) workplace systems (HPWS). Throughout New Zealand, many leading companies are keenly interested in establishing HPWS environments in order to enhance quality and productivity.