Strategic human resource management in service context: Taking care of business by taking care of employees and customers

Abstract

Integrating the strategic human resource management research with the multiple-stakeholder view of organizational climate, in this study we propose that the human resource management practices of a high-performance work system enhance a business unit's market performance in the service context by facilitating 2 types of strategically targeted organizational climate: concern for customers and concern for employees, which further encourage employees to engage in cooperative behaviors with customers (service performance) and coworkers (helping behavior) that are essential in achieving superior market performance. The results based on the data collected from multiple sources of 133 stores in Taiwan in 2 phases largely supported the proposed theoretical framework and shed light on the influence mechanism of high-performance work system on organizational effectiveness in the service context. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.