The field of Strategic Human Resource Management, especially the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and organizational performance, has controversies that remain unresolved. This means that there is still a need to review the literature of this field in order to find some meaning in the large number of proposed conclusions. Therefore, in order to update, accept suggestions and examine moderators not analyzed in other reviews, this study aims to conduct a meta-analysis of the results of 194 registers of empirical and original studies, conducted and/or published from 1985 to 2007, concerning one or more practices of HRM and one or more organizational performance indicators. For the meta-analysis, Hunter and Schmidt's (2004) psychometric meta-analysis method was chosen. From this meta-analysis it is possible to conclude that there is a positive relationship between HRM and organizational performance. Estimation of the magnitude of this relationship increases when the HRM practices are combined into one system or two or more organizational performance outcomes are considered.
strategic human resource management; organizational performance; meta-analysis
