by employee attitudes and behavior, there is support for a provisional conclusion
that through greater use of ‘high-commitment’ HRM, everyone wins. It would
seem that we are getting closer toWnding the conditions under which it is possible
to have high performance and high worker well-being.
7.5 WorkerWell-BeingorWorker
Exploitation?
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The evidence presented above consistently reveals a positive association between
the greater use of high-commitment HRM and various indicators of workers’
well-being. It also conWrms that the psychological contract acts as a mediator
between HRM and employee attitudes. Despite this, there have been critical voices
raised against HRM, partly because of its potentially negative consequences for
workers.
A major concern is that HRM is likely to be associated with the intensiWcation of
work. One of the aims of HRM is to raise performance; the issue is how this is
raised. There is empirical evidence that in the UK work has become more intensive
(Green 2001 ) with longer hours for some workers but also more time spent in
productive activity, leaving less space in the working day for recovery or reXection.
However, since there is also evidence that there has at the same time been only a
relatively modest implementation of HR practices (Cully et al. 1999 ), it is diYcult
to support a claim that intensiWcation can be attributed to HRM. Insofar as there is
any substance to the claim, it might be attributable to the greater focus on
performance management which falls within the ‘hard’ or ‘low-road’ version of
HRM, designed to direct worker eVort to increasing performance.
One of the indications of externally imposed demands is higher work-related
stress (Karasek and Theorell 1990 ). Appelbaum et al. ( 2000 ) found that workers
reported less stress in US organizations with high-performance work practices. In
contrast, the study by Ramsay et al. ( 2000 ) using the UK WERS data found an
association between their measure of HRM and higher reported stress among
workers. ThisWnding must be viewed with some caution since their measure of
HRM does not conform to any standard model. However, it does suggest there may
be some substance in the claims that HRM might have negative consequences. The
two studies by Guest and Conway ( 2002 a, 2004 a) found a modest but signiWcant
association between greater experience of HRM and work-related stress. However,
in both surveys, the association was moderated by the state of the psychological
contract. In other words, HRM is only associated with stress where management
fails to meet its promises and obligations.
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