Strategic Human Resource Management Measures: Key Linkages and the PeopleVantage Model

The field of human resource management faces a significant dilemma. While emerging evidence, theory and practical demands are increasing the visibility and credibility of human capital as a key to organizational success, the measures used to articulate the impact of human resource management decisions remain misunderstood, unwanted by key constituents, or even counter-productive. This article proposes that the key to creating meaningful HR metrics is to embed them within a model that shows the links between HR investments and organizational success. The PeopleVantage model is proposed as a framework, the application of the model is illustrated, and the potential of the model for guiding research and practical advances in effective HR measures is discussed

Configuring HRM Practices for Open Innovation: But Can It Deliver?

Though current scholarly interest generates a sustained growth of literature on open innovation, we need to learn more about human resource practices relating to open innovation. Building on the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework, we demonstrate the differential impact of human resources practice bundles on open innovation. We also find evidence that motivation-enhancing and competency-enhancing practices share a compensating effect on open innovation. Using firm-level data from 2540 Italian manufacturing firms, our study, if not first, contributes to the growing bodies of research on open innovation by bringing forth the human dimension to the forefront and offering a drilled-down practice-level view that needs to be addressed in the literature

Do HRM practices facilitate innovation? A qualitative study in a developing country

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the implementation of human resource management (HRM)practices that facilitate innovation in the public sector in a developing country.Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative method was engaged whereby a semi-structured interviewwas conducted to get the responses of two groups of employees which are top management and executive intwo types of public organizations which are awarded and non-awarded. The collected data was later analyzedthematically.Findings – The results show that there are differences and similarities among the public agencies in terms oftheir implementation of HRM practices that facilitate innovation. Apparently, the awarded public agencies dofollow HRM practices that really facilitate innovation such as local training, provide more types of rewards totheir employees and set a higher minimum level of innovation in their performance evaluation.Research limitations/implications – This research confines only 10 public agencies in Malaysia. Futurestudies might want to include a larger sample size to make the findings more extensive. It also would beinteresting to know different approaches in HRM implemented in the private organizations as well as toexamine their influences on performance and other organizational factors.Practical implications – Good and fair HRM practices such as training, reward and performance appraisalpractices that focus on innovation facilitate and produce more innovative employees and organizationinnovation. Thus, public managers should implement them to a higher extent.Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that aims to engage thequalitative method in understanding how HRM practices can facilitate innovation in a developing country

Innovation, skills and performance in the downturn: an analysis of the UK innovation survey 2011

The link between firms’ innovation performance and economic cycles, especially major downturns such as that of 2008-10, is a matter of great policy significance, but is relatively under-researched at least at the level of micro data on business behaviour. It is, for example, often argued that economies need to ‘innovate out of recessions’ since innovation is positively associated with improvements in productivity that then lead to growth and better employment (Nesta, 2009). The issues of how individual firms respond to downturns through their investment in innovation, and how this impacts on innovation outputs and ultimately business performance and growth during and after downturns, has been less studied because relevant data has not been readily available. The UK Innovation Survey (UKIS) 2011 now makes this possible. The UKIS 2011 with reference period 2008 to 2010 covers the downturn in economic activity generated by the global financial crash. The build-up of panels over the life of the UKIS also supports analysis of the longer-term interactions between innovation and the business cycle. This report analyses the last four waves of the surveys. Further, the latest survey includes questions on whether firms employ a specific set of skills, which adds materially to the ability to research the role of skills and human capital in innovation at the micro level

TRANSFORMING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INTO A STRATEGIC PARTNER

This thesis, in particular, includes three distinct qualitative and quantitative studies that examined different forms of HRM such as high-performance work practices and HR systems on various outcomes across levels within organizations. For example, corporate entrepreneurship and employee retention at the organizational level and employee creativity at the individual level. These studies were carried out using diverse research methods that encompass systematic literature review (1st study), fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (2nd study), and mixed method (3rd study) (e.g., questionnaire survey and multiple-case studies). All of these methods yielded valuable theoretical insights that advance our understanding of the topics covered. Further, practical implications were offered to help managers and practitioners to achieve success and competitive advantage. The first research paper analyzes empirical studies that explicitly examined the role of human resources management in fostering corporate entrepreneurship to determine the most effective HRM practices that enhance firms\u2019 entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the underlying mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions that moderate this relationship. A total number of 27 empirical research papers were identified in English peer-reviewed. Review analysis unfolded four high-performance work practices; selective staffing, extensive training, intensive compensation and rewards, and employee empowerment and participation. These practices were widely reported to have the strongest effects on encouraging corporate entrepreneurship. Furthermore, based on the extant empirical evidence, we suggested a theoretical moderated mediation model that explains the relationships between HRM, corporate entrepreneurship, organizational learning capability, and represents the entrepreneurial culture as a boundary condition. Theoretical contributions and implications along with future research paths are discussed. While the second study adopts a configurational perspective and applies fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis on a dataset of 232 Austrian and Hungarian manufacturing firms to explore how high-performance work practices combine to enhance employee retention. Results uncover five equifinal configurations of different high-performing skill, motivation, and opportunity-enhancing practices that could help companies and managers to retain employees effectively. The resultant configurations have been interpreted in terms of how each configuration fits different companies\u2019 HR strategies and policies. Our study raises advanced theoretical insights about the synergetic effects of HPWPs on employee retention through the configurational approach and fsQCA. Whereas the third study developed a multilevel model to examine the cross-level effects of interactions between HR systems and relational climates in predicting contexts for employee creativity. Using a mixed-method design and drawing on data obtained from survey questionnaires 282 employees nested in 69 teams and two exploratory case studies, our findings suggest noteworthy insights that the interactions effect between commitment-HR and communal-sharing climate are non-significant for employee creativity. Likewise, the interaction between compliance-HR and market-pricing climate. However, only a commitment-based HR system has been shown to be important to boost employee creativity. Nonetheless, based on the case studies findings, it is not sufficient by itself, instead, the relational climate that permeates the workplace is also vital for creative ideas generation.ENGLIS

Innovative Changes in European Companies (3rd European Company Survey)

[Excerpt] Innovation in its various forms is considered an important driver of improved competitiveness, productivity and the growth potential of companies. By innovating both in their products and in workplace practices and processes, European workplaces may have a better chance to compete internationally. This report critically reflects on common concepts of innovation and explores the links between innovation, practices, performance and workplace well-being across the EU28. In particular, it examines associations between innovative company behaviour and the implementation of bundles of workplace practices. The report also studies the role of social dialogue in translating innovative workplace practices into higher levels of performance and well-being. The report contributes to research and policy debates by examining innovation from a different perspective. It acknowledges that companies need to invest in research and development (R&D), increase the number of patents granted and improve technology. However, it highlights other important factors that contribute to innovation such as the organisation of work, human resource practices and employee participation

Human Resource Practices and Organizational Commitment: A Deeper Examination

This paper examines newer conceptualizations of HRM practices in the HR-Performance Relationship as well as newer conceptualizations of commitment. Juxtaposing these categories of HR practices and types of commitment provides a clearer theoretical rational for at least some ways that HR practices can influence organizational performance, be that positive or negative. Implications for research are then discussed

Do high-involvement management practices enhance employees' innovative behavior?

This thesis studies the connection between High-Involvement Management (HIM) practices and employees' innovative behavior. Opportunity-enhancing, ability-enhancing, and motivation-enhancing HIM practices' connection to the probability for expressing innovative behavior is studied quantitatively using a probit regression and propensity score matching with an extensive set of control variables. Data is obtained from the Finnish MEADOW survey, which contains more than 1000 combined employer-employee observations. The main finding in the thesis is that opportunity-enhancing and ability-enhancing practices are associated with innovative behavior: In the scale of 0-10, a one-point increase in the aggregate score of the practices is associated with a statistically significant 3.4%-point and 1.3%-point average increase in the probability for innovative behavior for opportunity-enhancing and ability-enhancing practices, respectively. For motivation-enhancing practices, such association is not found. In addition, propensity score matching reveals that bundling the different practice types is associated with an increase in the probability for innovative behavior, but the association is smaller than the single practice types' combined association. Motivation-enhancing practices show slightly positive, yet insignificant association when not combined with other practices, while ability-enhancing practices show larger associations in magnitude when combined with other practices. The results are aligned with the vast majority of prior theoretical and empirical studies, and provide interesting future research topics, especially considering the effect of non-monetary incentives, which could not be investigated with the data used in the study, and the potential trade-off between productivity and innovativeness. Prior studies have suggested HIM practices to have a positive association with productivity, and it would be interesting to find out if productivity and innovativeness are complementary, substitutes, or independent of each other

Delighting the Customer: Creativity-Oriented High-Performance Work Systems, Frontline Employee Creative Performance, and Customer Satisfaction

Drawing on self-determination theory, we proposed and tested a cross-level model of how perceived creativity-oriented high-performance work systems (HPWS) influence customer satisfaction. Data were obtained from frontline employees (FLEs), their managers, and branch records of two organizations (retail bank and cosmetics) in Lithuania. Results of multilevel structural equation modeling analyses revealed partial support for our model. Although perceived creativity-oriented HPWS related to creative performance at the individual level, this effect was mediated solely by need satisfaction and not by creative process engagement nor by a serial mediation of both variables as we hypothesized. However, as we did hypothesize, average branch creative performance related to branch customer satisfaction. We interpret our findings as underscoring the utility of perceived creativity-oriented HPWS in fostering FLEs’ creative performance and ultimately, customer satisfaction