Abstract In order to research exploitative innovation’s influence on the building of high performance work system, on the basis of the firsthand data of several high-tech enterprises in Henan and other first cities, this paper uses exploitative innovations as the independent variable, high performance work systems as the dependent variable, through a structural equation model (SEM) to study their relationship between the exploitative innovation and high performance work systems, and research innovation performance in the presence of intermediary effect between them. The results show that exploitative innovation has positive influence on high performance work system (HPWS). Exploitative innovation has a positive impact on innovation performance; Innovation performance has positive influence on high performance new work system. There is a partial mediating effect between exploitative innovation and high performance new work system. The exploitative innovation has a positive impact on the four dimensions of high performance work system: organizational performance, performance-based compensation, employee satisfaction, and information sharing.