Work engagement, tenure, and external opportunities moderate perceived high-performance work systems and affective commitment

We examined the role of our proposed moderators, namely, work engagement, organizational tenure, and perceived external opportunities, in the relationship between perceived high-performance work systems (HPWS) and affective organizational commitment. We conducted a survey with 94 employees of an information technology company in China. The results showed that the effect of perceived HPWS on affective commitment is stronger among employees with longer tenure, and weaker among employees who perceive more external opportunities. The results also showed that the effect of perceived HPWS on affective commitment is stronger at a marginally significant level among employees with stronger work engagement. These findings suggest that organizational managers should pay more attention to individual factors that may change employees’ responses to HPWS, and adopt a more individualized approach to retain talented employees.