Abstract

Drawing upon the strategic human resource management (HRM) literature, this chapter provides a qualitative review of empirical research on the relationship between HRM systems and organizational commitment. It introduces the major theoretical perspectives explaining the HRM systems_organizational commitment relationship and summarizes the key findings of this relationship at different levels of analyses (unit level, cross-level, and individual level). The review shows that among the three types of organizational commitment, affective commitment has been most frequently studied in the strategic HRM research. It also shows that HRM systems intended to enhance employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), motivation, and opportunities to perform are positively related to affective commitment which may further lead to employee behavioral outcomes and organizational performance outcomes. Based on the review, the chapter provides managerial implications about how to build organizational commitment by using HRM systems and discusses potential directions for future research on this topic.