High performance work practice system (for short HPWS) is a type of
human resource management system that creates sustainable
competitiveness for enterprises. Cappelli and Neumark (2001) defined it
as the sum of a series of activities and policies that ensure human
resource management can serve as the enterprises’ development strategy
in their own operations[8]. Scholars have
clarified the compositions of high performance work practice system from
different perspectives. For instance, Huselid (1995) divided high
performance work practice system into the ability of employees,
information resource sharing among enterprises’ departments, employee
skills training, and employee job rotation. Guthrie (2001) pointed out
the main dimensions of high performance work practice system, which were
composed of cross-departmental communication, job rotation among
employees, and internal employee promotion. Arthur (1994) suggested that
the high performance work practice system was composed of employee
communication and involvement. This study follows the classification of
Qin jian (2012), who indicated that the high performance work practice
system mainly consist of three dimensions: cross-departmental
communication, job rotation, and employee training.
As complex social network relationships, simmelian ties effect high
performance work practice system from cross-departmental communication,
job rotation, and employee training. Firstly, unlike isolated two
individuals ties, the simmelian ties introduces the third social units
which extremely weaken an individual’s bargaining power. This ensures
the benefits of participants in cross-departmental communication are
balanced. In others words, simmelian ties make the behavior of
participants in cross-departmental communication more rational
(Zhangwei, 2016). They are able to express oneself objectively and
calmly within a reasonable frame and then improve the situation of
participants who are in conflict. The third party also makes
participants who hold different opinions move towards seeking a common
ground while resolving differences and reconciliation could be
possible(Krackhardt, 1999). Secondly, according to Sheng ya’s and Li
wei’s (2012) research achievements, strong simmelian ties mean that the
organizations have active social interaction behaviors. Strong simmelian
ties standarize the behavior and social-economic characteristics among
knowledge workers. Strong simmelian ties are useful for enterprises to
carry out reasonable knowledge division and modularization operation
under the existing resource circumstances and the established
organization framework. Strong simmelian ties adopt local and gradual
way to implement job division and job rotation in order to achieve
optimal allocation of knowledge workers. At the same time, weak
simmelian ties enrich the social network with new knowledge and a great
many of non-redundant knowledge resources, which also help break down
the barriers of knowledge transferring among individuals and
departments, and improve information exchange in internal enterprise by
job rotation. Thirdly, employee training is aimed at updating existing
knowledge and improving the professional quality and skills of employees
in order to promote the optimization of enterprises’ overall knowledge
structure, and achieve the established goals of enterprises. The
structure of simmelian ties can enhance knowledge communication and
interaction in the process of employee training , which also promote the
formation of the consistency of context among knowledge workers. Similar
knowledge bases further improve the ability of knowledge workers to
absorb knowledge(Zhangwei, Renhao, 2012).
Furthermore, Miao Ren-tao (2013) and other scholars pointed out that the
implementation effects of high performance work practice system were
restricted by organizational situation. To be more specific, the high
performance work practice system becomes more effective and approporiate
only when the knowledge workers positively evaluate the fairness of the
organization. In networks of simmelian ties, knowledge workers of
enterprises become familiar with each other and gradually build up basic
trust and abide behavior criterion. The relatively closed and stable tie
method makes knowledge workers want to observe and recognize
complementary value. This helps to clear up and resolve
misunderstanding, and forms positive exchange relationships among
knowledge workers and enterprises (Tortoriello, Krackhart, 2010).
According to the above mentioned analysis, this study makes hypothesis 1
as follows.
Hypothesis 1: Strong and weak simmelian ties have significantly positive
effects on high performance work practice system respectively.