Empowerment in High Performance Work Systems from a Systems Theory Perspective

High Road to Innovation approaches in general and High Performance Work Systems (HPWSs) in particular are considered to have great potential to generate competitive advantage in terms of productivity and innovativeness. High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) entail a transformation to a holistic organization that features self-managed teamwork, flat hierarchical structures, job rotation, performance related wages or workforce empowerment to create an organisation based on employee involvement. Scientific discussion of HPWSs has not referred much to systems theory, although systems theory (in particular the complex adaptive systems perspective) might contribute fruitful insights into the underlying principles and structural conditions of HPWS. In this paper we present our research on HPWS and our initial exlour endeavor to include systems theory in this work. In particular we want to determine, how specific HPWPs correspond with the characteristics of complex adaptive systems based on the results of a literature research and initial theoretical considerations.