THE IMPACT OF A FINANCIAL CRISIS ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP

The paper explores the human resources practices and organisational performance relationship through a longitudinal study. It evolves and explores a circular framework for the relationship in a longitudinal context so as to help address the question of the direction of causality in the link. In addition, it places the relationship in a recession context and examines the impact of crisis on it, on its strength and existence by observing and assessing patterns of change. Its main findings show that interestingly no clear causality is supported in any direction. Even more, that any relationship between human resource management practices and organisational performance seems to diminish in strength when in crisis.