Why complementary HRM practices impact performance: the case of rewards, job design, and work climate in a knowledge-sharing context

The strategic HRM literature suggests that HRM influences employees in combinations of practices that "fit" each other rather than as stand-alone practices; however, it pays little attention to the underlying individual-level mechanisms. In contrast, the HRM literature on knowledge sharing examines the influence of single practices on individual-level knowledge sharing, but fails to include the influence of combinations of practices. We link the idea of fit between practices to employee motivation for knowledge sharing by arguing that rewards may be ambiguous and difficult to interpret, but that such ambiguity may be reduced if rewards are combined with other aligned HRM practices, notably job design and work climate. Thus, fit is established through the ambiguity-reducing effect of combining specific HRM practices.