50Human Resource Management
High commitment management defi ned, Wood (1999) High-commitment management is generally characterized as entailing, a) a
particular orientation on the part of employers to their employees, based on an
underlying conception of them as assets to be developed rather than as dispos-
able factors of production, and b) the combined use of certain personnel prac-
tices, such as job redesign, job fl exibility, problem-solving groups, team working
and minimal status differences.
Approaches to achieving high commitment, Beer et al (1984) and Walton (1985b) The development of career ladders and emphasis on trainability and
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commitment as highly valued characteristics of employees at all levels
in the organization.
A high level of functional fl exibility with the abandonment of poten-
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tially rigid job descriptions.
The reduction of hierarchies and the ending of status differentials.
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A heavy reliance on team structure for disseminating information (team
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briefi ng), structuring work (team working) and problem solving
(quality circles).
SOURCE REVIEW
Wood and Albanese (1995) added to this list:
job design as something management consciously does in order to provide jobs that
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have a considerable level of intrinsic satisfaction;
a policy of no compulsory lay-offs or redundancies and permanent employment guar-
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antees with the possible use of temporary workers to cushion fl uctuations in the
demand for labour;
new forms of assessment and payment systems and, more specifi cally, merit pay and
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profi t sharing;
a high involvement of employees in the management of quality.
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As defi ned above, there are many similarities between high-performance and high-commit-
ment management. In fact, there is much common ground between the practices included in
all of these approaches as Sung and Ashton (2005) comment.
