High performance work systems, organisational justice, employee engagement and employee performance of selected manufacturing firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Human Resource (HR) practices such as high-performance work systems (HPWS), organisational justice and employee engagement tools are all geared towards improving employee performance. Due to the dearth of literature on HR practices within the local manufacturing sector in Kenya, the study sought to examine the effect of HPWS, employee engagement, and organizational justice and how these practices influence employee performance in selected manufacturing firms in Kenya. The study had seven–fold objectives; to examine the direct effect of HPWS, Employee Engagement, and Organisational Justice on Employee Performance of selected manufacturing firms in Nairobi City County. The study also evaluated the mediating effect of Employee Engagement and the moderating effect of Organisational Justice on the relationship between HPWS and Employee Performance of selected manufacturing firms. Further, the study assessed the moderating effect of Organisational Justice on the relationship between HPWS and Employee Engagement of selected manufacturing firms and the moderating effect of Organisational Justice on the indirect relationship between HPWS and Employee Performance through Employee Engagement in the selected manufacturing firms. The study was underpinned by the social exchange theory, ability-motivation-opportunity theory and job-demands resources theory and adopted an explanatory research design. The study targeted 6,254 employees of the selected manufacturing firms with a sample size of 376 respondents who were sampled through a proportionate stratified random sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used and the data collected was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics and the output was presented in tabular and pictorial formats. Data was transformed before hierarchical multiple regression models based on the Hayes (2018) Process 4.2 macro to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significance levels. Diagnostic tests were carried out before regression analysis and the assumptions were validated. The study revealed that HPWS (β = 0.106, p < 0.05), employee engagement (β = 0.423, p < 0.05), and organizational justice (β = 0.280, p < 0.05) significantly and positively predicted employee performance. In addition, employee engagement (β = 0.245, p < 0.05) mediated between HPWS and employee performance. Organizational justice significantly and positively moderated the relationship between HPWS and employee engagement (β = 0.396, p < 0.05), and moderated between HPWS and employee performance (β = 0.147, p < 0.05). Finally, organisational justice showed an indirect link between HPWS and employee performance (β = 0.316, p < 0.05) via employee engagement (β = 0.217, p < 0.05). The study concludes that HPWS have a positive and significant direct effect on employee performance and that the causal linkages are mediated by employee engagement and indirectly linked to organizational justice. The study recommends that the manufacturing firms should consider integrating manufacturing technologies with HPWS, realigning formal employee engagement procedures, enhancing justice perceptions through feedback mechanisms and adopting new HR technological systems.