In search of commitment-oriented human resource management practices and the conditions that sustain them

Drawing on data from a survey of human resource management (HRM) in Irish organizations, the paper examines the incidence of coherent bundles of commitment-oriented HRM practices and deploys loglinear modelling to test a series of hypotheses concerning external and internal factors which sustain such practices. The paper identifies the low overall incidence of cohesive commitment-oriented HRM practices in organizations in Ireland. The analysis establishes that the strategic integration of HRM into corporate strategy strongly favours the adoption of such practices, as does the avoidance of union recognition. No link can be established empirically between sectoral turbulence or dynamism and either the adoption or non-adoption of coherent sets of commitment-oriented HRM practices. Nor does the modelling identify any core set of underlying features which, when observed concurrently, greatly increases the likelihood that commitment-oriented HRM practices will be adopted.