The concept of complementarity and its role in the design of organizations has enjoyed increasing
attention over the past twenty years. We provide a systematic review of the empirical studies on
complementarities in leading journals in management, economics and related disciplines that
considers the nature of the factors among which complementarities are found to exist, and the
effects of complementarities in organizations. Our findings suggest that complementarities result
from the skilful matching of heterogeneous resources which generate positive returns above and
beyond the effect of each resource generated on its own. In contrast, the empirical evidence on
complementarities between individual organizational and HR practices in firms provides mixed
conclusions. We show that complementarities are likely to materialize in complex systems of
multiple design elements. Therefore, future research should aim at uncovering complementary
effects among multiple elements that capture organizational systems better than a few selected
elements only do