Do High Performance Work Systems contribute to the thrivability of an organization?

High Road to Innovation approaches in general and High Performance Work Systems (HPWSs) in particular are considered to have great potential to generate competitive advantage in terms of productivity and innovativeness. High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) entail a transformation to a holistic organization that features self-managed team-work, flat hierarchical structures, job rotation, performance-related wages or workforce empowerment to create an organization based on employee involvement. Scientific discussion of HPWSs has not referred much to systems theory, although systems theory (in particular the complex adaptive systems perspective) might provide fruitful insights into the underlying principles and structural conditions of HPWSs. In this paper we present our research on HPWSs and our endeavor to include systems theory in this work. Furthermore we describe a possible effect of HPWSs on the organizational culture and decision making, in particular with regards to sustainability issues and corporate ethics.