Competitive advantage through HR innovation

Despite great recognition for human resources (HR) as a source of value addition within firms, HR innovation remains poorly understood. Providing practical examples and evidence from our work in Australian manufacturing and service firms, this paper attempts to explore how firms can gain competitive advantage through HR innovation

Learning capabilities, human resource management innovation and competitive advantage

The growing literature on innovation pays limited attention to the role of human resource management (HRM) innovation in creating competitive advantage. This paper adopts a knowledge-based approach to examine how firms design and implement HRM innovations (HRMIs) and how such innovations support competitive advantage. Drawing from multiple streams of literature and qualitative evidence from Australian manufacturing and service firms, our findings reveal that human resource (HR) functional-level learning capabilities, through which HR professionals build and nurture new knowledge configurations, facilitate the design and implementation of HRMIs. The findings also reveal that HRMIs, when coupled with top management support, can play a vital role in firm competitive advantage. Addressing the limitations of the term radical innovations to fully capture HRMIs and based on our findings and extant literature we propose a new classification that will capture the unique nature of HRMIs. In addition to contributing to theory, our paper provides valuable insights to practitioners for building and nurturing learning capabilities for HRMI-related competitive advantage. © 2016, © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Entrepreneurial behaviour: A new perspective on the role of the HR professional

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and validate a scale to capture entrepreneurship behaviour at the human resource management (HRM) functional level. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from the HRM and entrepreneurship literature, this paper first conceptualises and operationalises entrepreneurial behaviour at the human resource (HR) functional level. Second, it uses a multi-phase, systematic scale development procedure to design a two-dimensional scale of entrepreneurial HRM. Finally, the scale is validated by testing its relationship with HRM innovation. Findings: The findings suggest that entrepreneurial behaviour at the HRM functional level is characterised by innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk-taking and consensus-building behaviour. The scale shed new light on the roles of HR professionals. Research limitations/implications: This paper highlights the need for HR professionals to demonstrate entrepreneurial behaviour in HRM value addition. The scale development process, while providing a detailed understanding of the entrepreneurial behaviour at the HR functional level, will facilitate future research. Practical implications: This scale provides HR professionals with the means to measure and improve entrepreneurial HRM, leading to higher levels of HRM-based value addition. Originality/value: This is the first known attempt to capture entrepreneurial behaviour at the HRM functional level. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited