HIWPS

High Involvement Work Practices



Abstract

I have selected High involvement work practices (HIWPs) as an organization to study. Under our spin-based system, songs are ranked based on the number of detections they received in the chart week. A spin in Chicago counts the same as a spin in Savannah, Ga., which clearly illustrates that one station is not more influential than another. Likewise, a spin in morning drive is the same as a spin in overnights.

The audience-based chart ranks songs based on gross impressions computed by cross-referencing exact times of airplay with Arbitron 12-plus listener data for each station at that time. This methodology will necessarily make major-market stations more influential, because of their audience size, and could potentially affect how record labels work various markets. At the same time, overnight spins and syndication would be less of a factor because of the smaller audiences that they attract. It provides employee's high involvement in their work. I am working as deputy manager in this organization. It helps to empower employees to do their jobs better, and also empower them at the bargaining table. This paper considers whether non-universal adoption of productivity-enhancing work practices may, at least in part, be explained by this dual nature of empowerment. It examines the case of a customer service programme in the Northern California division of Safeway stores, its affect on the outcome of a strike against Safeway, and the subsequent pattern of adoption (and non-adoption) of similar programmes among Safeway's competitors. It concludes that the dual nature of empowerment can help explain the apparent paradox posed by empirical studies; that although HIWPs improve the performance of all sorts of organisations, most organisations do not adopt HIWPs.

Introduction

A range of work practices, which have been labelled both “high-involvement work practices” (HIWPs) and high-performance work practices (HPWPs), are seen by many as ways in which the active involvement of ordinary employees can improve the performance of firms (hence the labels; I will use the HIWP label below). Two controversies surrounds HIWPs. One controversy is whether such practices will improve the performance of organisations as a general rule, or only that of organisations with certain strategic needs; the former position has been called “universalist”, the latter “strategic contingency”. Empirical studies mostly find that HIWPs improve performance for organisations regardless of strategic need, which lends support to the universalist position. On the other hand, these and other studies find that HIWPs are nowhere near universally adopted; if the universalist theory is correct, we are left with the need to explain why these universal benefits are so often left on the table.

Reader

What the Reader needs to know and needs to do

1 Adam

2 Smith

3 John

Adam needs to know about the developments in company.

Smith wants to know abut the facilities provided to human resource in the company.

John wants to know about the performance of company's employees.

The second controversy concerns whether, and in what respect, HIWPs empower employees. The view of HIWP advocates is that the practices in question work because they allow employees to ...