The Role of High-Performance Work System Practices in Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of Employees’ Engagement and the Moderating Role of Servant Leadership: Evidence from the Airline Industry

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationships of High-Performance Work System (HPWS) practices with organizational performance. Additionally, it investigated the impact of HPWS practices on organizational performance. Also, it studied the moderating role of servant leadership on the relationship between employee engagement and the organization performance in airline sector in Jordan. The respondents in the current study were 277 employees working in the private airline sector in Jordan during the two-month period of January and February 2018. The results of the study revealed that an HPWS practice was positively linked with organizational performance as demonstrated by better employee satisfaction and employee retention. Moreover, the findings indicated that employee engagement partially mediates the relationships of HPWS practices with employee satisfaction and employee retention. Finally, the results revealed that the moderating role of servant leadership is not significant on the relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance. This study is the first empirical study of the airline sector in Jordan and the first to focus on employee engagement possible mediating role in the effect of HPWS practices on employee satisfaction and employee retention using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze data collected from employees working in the airline sector. Future studies should move beyond individual performance parameters such as employee satisfaction and employee retention to test the influence of HPWS practices on performance at the organizational level, such as financial performance. Keywords: HPWS practices, employee engagement, employee satisfaction and employee retention, servant leadership.