Globalisation has encouraged business houses and the top thinkers to act globally in order to gain competitive advantage. Further, organisations have to cope up with tough competition and new technology (Zhang and Morris, 2014; Hassan et al., 2013; Khasawneh and Alzawahreh, 2012; Messersmith et al., 2011), which force management to seek new ways of organising work and employment (Guest, 2011). In this context Huselid (1995) viewed that high performance work system can help to solve these problems with the help of high performance human resource practices. The high performance work system manage its valuable and talented employees in such a way that helps to generate sustainable competitive advantage for the organisation (Way, 2002). It is considered as a set of inter-related human resource practices (Carvalho and Chambel, 2015; Posthuma et al., 2013), which includes comprehensive recruitment and selection, incentive-based compensation, performance management, extensive employee involvement and training (Huselid, 1995). These practices enhance the employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), increase their motivation and also empower them to use their knowledge, skill and abilities for organisational advantage (Combs et al. 2006). In other words, high performance work system influence employees’ skill, attitude and behaviour, which can be advantageous in knowledge creation and development within the firm. On the same line, high performance work system help employees to create new knowledge and motivate them with learning abilities in order to boost the productivity and efficiency of an organisation. Zacharatos et al. (2005) argued that high performance work systems focus on empowering employees through increased information flow and the decentralisation of decision making and are allied with increased employee efficiency. High performance work system are also known as high performance work practices (Mihail and Kloutsiniotis, 2016). High performance work practices are different from traditional human resource practices as the later focus on achieving goals of the organisation through hard work of employees (Arthur, 1994) but, high performance work system includes the nature and degree of human resource management ‘fit’ (Boxall and Purcell, 2008; Wood, 1999) and bundling of human resource practices (Mihail and Kloutsiniotis, 2016; Macduffie, 1995). Further, Boxall and Purcell (2003) viewed that high performance work practices are a combination of key practices such as more rigorous selection and better training systems to enhance ability levels, more comprehensive incentives (i.e. employee bonuses and internal career ladders) to increase motivation and participative structures (self-managing teams and quality circles) that improve opportunity to contribute. In addition, Jiang et al. (2013) advocated that high performance work system enhances the employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities, motivation and opportunity that develops higher commitment (Gong et al. 2009), lower turnover (Jensen at al., 2013), higher productivity and quality (MacDuffie,1995), better service performance (Chuang and Liao, 2010), enhanced safety performance (Zacharatos et al. 2005) and better financial performance (Huselid, 1995).