Employee Firm-Specific Knowledge and the Acquisition of a High Performance Work System Organization

This study investigates the changes in the human capital elements of a highperformance work system, namely Firm-Specific Knowledge (FSK), and customer relations of arecently acquired Australian telecommunication company characterized as having a HighPerforming Work System (HPWS) environment. The qualitative research was conductedthrough semi-structured interviews with the top and middle management team of the companysupported by a quantitative online employee survey (including interview participants). From the findings it is evident that the existence of a HPWS environment in the organization helped the employees to develop and build on firm-specific human capital with knowledge of firm'sproducts, customers and work processes enabling them to gain more individual efficiency. FSK was identified as the most significant contributing factor towards improved customer relations and high performance of the organization in both pre and post takeover. The takeover seems to have had no negative impact on employee FSK. It seems that employee knowledge of products, customers and work processes have improved and they have further built on their FSK after theacquisition.