Unraveling the Relationship Between High‐Performance Work Systems and Team Performance: The Contingent Role of Competitive Team Climate

ABSTRACT This study develops a multilevel moderated mediation model to explore the relationship between high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and team performance. Adopting a dialectical view of the effects of HPWS, it posits a dual ‐positive and negative‐ path between HPWS and team performance, which is jointly mediated by group coordination and relationship conflict. Furthermore, it theorizes that a competitive team climate can significantly influence these relationships. The proposed research model was tested using multisource data from a sample of 503 team members and 125 team managers from 58 firms. The results revealed that HPWS are positively associated with both group coordination and relationship conflict, and that both these relationships are moderated by a competitive team climate. This study contributes to the strategic human resource management literature by revealing that HPWS can be associated with team performance through both positive and negative intermediary mechanisms, and that team climate constitutes an important boundary condition that can amplify and inhibit the effect of HPWS on team performance.