56 SITUATING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
been presented (e.g. Guest 1987, 1997; Purcell et al. 2003; and, to some extent,
Becker et al. 1997).
This approach has led to a growing body of research exploring the relation-
ship between HR practices and employee attitudes and behaviour (Appelbaum
et al. 2000; Cully et al. 1999; Guest 1999, 2002; Ramsay et al. 2000). These
results generally show that the greater application of a distinctive set of HR
practices is associated with higher worker satisfaction and commitment. A
dissenting voice comes from Ramsay et al. (2000) who point out that HR
practices may also be associated with greater stress. Reflecting this concern,
there has been a wider critique of this perspective from, among others, Legge
(1995) and Keenoy (1990a; 1997). Their argument is that this approach to
HRM can take the form of a new and more insidious form of control in which
management achieves the control, compliance, and possibly the commitment
of workers through the management of organizational culture. This implies
a unitarist model in contrast to a more traditional form of control based on
thenotionofanexchangeintheeffort–reward bargain that lies at the heart of
the employment relationship. In this respect, so the argument goes, this soft
(Storey 1987) approach to HRM takes over the mantle of human relations and
represents a subtle form of manipulation. If this is the case, it raises another
set of ethical issues.
One counterargument is that if workers say they prefer this approach and
report satisfaction, then we should accept what they say at face value (Guest
1999). Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that high-commitment HRM
is generally preferred to any of the alternatives (Guest and Conway 1999). An
extension of this argument, and one that is open to empirical investigation is
whether it meets acceptable ethical standards if it is applied in contexts where
there are safeguards. One way in which such an approach is being addressed
in the UK is through the concept of partnership, an issue we return to later in
this chapter.
While this soft, high-commitment approach has attracted interest because
of its focus and implications for workers, there has been rather less exploration
of its impact on performance. One reason for this is that high quality research
incorporating each step in the model is extremely difficult to do. However, we
do have some evidence. In the UK, Patterson et al. (1998) conducted a longi-
tudinal study in a sizeable sample of manufacturing companies and reported
an association between HR practices and commitment at one point and sub-
sequent changes in performance. Moreover, they reported that HR practices
were associated with greater change than other management activities such as
R & D expenditure. Analysis of WERS 98, based on subjective management
accounts of workplace performance and cross-sectional data, also points to
a positive association between HRM and performance, partially mediated by
employee satisfaction and commitment (Guest and Conway 2000). However,
at least one American study has challenged these findings, albeit using a rather