Research On The "Double-edged Sword" Effect Of High Performance Work System

For more than three decades,the academic community has been working to find "best management practices" that can create sustainable competitive advantages for organizations,thereby promoting the vigorous development of empirical research on high-performance work systems.Many scholars have explained its effectiveness in improving organization performance and motivating employees' positive work behaviors and attitudes from the perspectives of social exchange theory,human capital theory,behavior theory and so on.Nevertheless,the "black box" of high-performance work system on performance has not been fully revealed.With the gradually thorough of research,some scholars have also questioned whether the high-performance work system can achieve a win-win situation between organization and employees,and have issued a strong call for vigilance over its negative effects,however,it has not yet attracted enough attention,and the empirical research on its potential negative effects is still scarce.In addition,previous research on the consequence of highperformance work system mainly focused on the work domain,but lacking the penetration into employees' life area,while the only few studies that have serious dispute in their understanding of its relationship with employees' family life.Therefore,further broadening the action path of high-performance work system on employee performance from new theoretical perspective,exploring its potential impact on individual life and the effective intervention measures is important for clarifying research disputes and enriching management theories.In view of this,differing from previous studies tended to carry out the research from positive perspective,based on the job demand-resource model,this article proposed that highperformance work system may have a "double-edged sword" effect on employee's performance and life through the mediator effect of work intensification.Furthermore,according to the thought of these theories,this study discussed the moderating effect of transactional leadership between work intensification and task performance as well as work-family conflict,but in view of the weak relevance between its exceptional management dimension and the research topics,we only explored the role of its contingent reward in the above relationships.Since the western scales of work intensification failed to fit the Chinese context,this study first attempts to use grounded research to re-explore the structure of it in Chinese context and preparation its initial questions.Afterwards,this dissertation tested the reliability and validity of the scale using the data obtained from three nationwide questionnaire serveries,and then determined its structure and measurement items.The results showed that work intensification was a two-dimensional construct that includes working time extension and work intensity increase,the former is mainly manifested in three aspects: such as work at home,work handling on days off,and interruption by work during non-working time;the latter is mainly manifested in 7 aspects,including more workload,higher work speed,multitasking,tighter task deadline,frequent work interruption,more task pressure,and fewer work breaks.Then,according to the job demand-resource model,the research hypotheses was proposed and a series of empirical tests was carried out.Firstly,tested the reliability and validity of each scale by using the data collected from the preliminary survey.Secondly,verified the hypothesis with SPSS,HLM and other statistical software using 466 sets of matching data of direct superiors and subordinates from 119 teams.Results of HLM analysis revealed that: Highperformance work system positively influence task performance and work-family conflict,that is high-performance work systems have conflicting effects on employees in the work and family fields;Work intensification and its two dimensions(working time extension and work intensity increase)plays a mediator role in the process aforementioned;Contingent reward positively moderate the relationship between work intensification,work intensity increase and workfamily conflict,but its enhancement on the relationship between work intensification and task performance and the inhibition effect on the relationship between working time extension and work-family conflict have not been verified.The main innovations and contributions of the research are: firstly,constructed and validated the "double-edged sword" effect of high-performance work system on employees' work and family life for the first time,thus not only supported the speculation of its negative impacts,but also responded to the call of broadening the research horizon and provided strong evidence for clarifying theoretical disputes;Secondly,discovered a new mechanism of highperformance work system on employee performance,meanwhile the verification of the mediator role of work intensification also provided new approach for excavating its other potential negative effects;Third,based on grounded research,the dissertation developed a work intensification scale applicable to the local contexts,then made up for the lack of effectiveness of western tools in China and pushed local research to the measurable stage;Finally,the discovery of moderating effect of contingent reward on the relationship between work intensification and work-family conflict has enriched the boundary conditions of work intensification,and provided inspirations for managers to alleviate its disadvantages.However,due to resource and capacity constraints,much of the research still need to be improved and the two dimensions of work intensification needs to be ameliorated.In future,it's necessary to optimize the measurement methods of work intensification on the one hand,and to dig deeper into other negative effects of high-performance work systems in individual and organizational fields on the other hand.In addition,improve the antecedents and consequences of work intensification in Chinese context,and find effective measures to alleviate the hazards of high-performance work system and work intensification is also worth pondering for not only theoretical but also practices.