| dc.description.abstract | Although there is a growing body of evidence demonstrating the linkage between Human
Resource (HR) practices and firm performance, there is less evidence on the nature of this
linkage. This study sought to fill this gap by firstly, identifying, applying and analyzing in
depth the soft and hard typologies of Human Resource Management. Previous studies
focused on generic human resource practices as the main independent variables. Secondly,
the study introduced organizational commitment and its three components of affective,
continuance and normative as an employee outcome and an intermediary variable which has
significant implications for firm performance. The aim of this study was to establish the
relationship between the soft and ~d HR strategic orientations of human resource
management, organizational commitment and its components and the moderating effect of
four organizational characteristics namely: firm size, firm age, firm ownership and
unionization on firm performance.
The study was guided by five specific objectives that sought to establish the relationship
between: human resource strategic orientation and firm performance; human resource
strategic orientation and organizational commitment; organizational commitment and firm
performance; the interaction effect of human resource strategic orientation and organizational
commitment on firm performance and the moderating effect of organizational characteristics
on the relationship between HR strategic orientation and organizational commitment and that
between organizational commitment and firm performance. To achieve these objectives,
twenty-six hypotheses were formulated and tested. Correlation and regression analysis
techniques were applied. The study was conducted on a sample of 148 large private
manufacturing firms in Kenya and a questionnaire return rate of 64 per cent was achieved.
The findings indicated that, most of the independent variables have a relationship with firm
performance and the variations in the dependent variable can be explained by the
independent variables. Soft and hard human resource strategic orientations were found to
have a strong and significant positive relationship with firm performance, affective
commitment, continuance commitment and overall organization commitment. Out of the four
organizational characteristics namely: firm size, firm ownership, firm age and unionization,
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only firm size and firm ownership have a consistent and significant moderating effect on the
relationship between human resource strategic orientations and organizational commitment
and between organizational commitment and firm performance.
These results are significant for theory, policy and practice. It emerged, for example, that
contrary to theoretical reasoning, hard human resource practices are positively associated
with affective commitment because such practices achieve the desired results and also
because people like to be associated with a winning team, they develop positive attitudes and
acceptance of the concerned practices. For policy and practical implications, it is concluded
that organizations should devise policies that retain employees covering all three areas of
commitment, that is, affective, continuance and normative so as to realize business success | en |
