Human Resource Management-Performance Research: Is Everyone Really on the Same Page on Employee Involvement?

Differences in the treatment of involvement in the human resource management (HRM)-performance research stream have been underplayed, as commentaries concentrate on showing that HRM produces a performance premium, and more recently on exploring the mechanisms explaining this. This paper first identifies the two initial concerns of the research stream - the value of employee involvement and the holistic treatment of HRM - and the way these are joined to present a unified view of the area. It then reviews the studies, confirming that involvement has been underplayed or neglected completely, and is only prioritized in a minority. A divide is identified between HRM as an orientation towards fostering employee involvement - seen as a managerial philosophy - and as a technology - a set of practices constituting high-performance work systems. The paper then argues that acknowledgement of this divide matters, and concludes by drawing out some implications for how we should progress the research stream.