Carrots, Sticks, and Performance: Is It Commitment, or Commitment Plus Control?

Abstract

The field of strategic human resource management has established a clear positive relationship between human resource practices and organizational performance. However, much of the research in this field has focused on commitment-eliciting HR practices and neglected control-oriented HR practices. In this article, we review the strategic human resource management literature since Arthur’s 1992 work on commitment and control HR practices and demonstrate that the field has implicitly adopted a normative paradigm favoring commitment HR practices. In doing so, we explicate why the focus on commitment HR practices has hindered our understanding of the horizontal fit of HR practices. We suggest that this is problematic in light of recent research demonstrating that control HR practices independently affect performance and may interact with commitment HR practices to affect performance. Additionally, we provide guidance for future research that incorporates both commitment and control HR practices.