The impact of a learning organization on performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoungshin Kim ◽  
Karen E. Watkins ◽  
Zhenqiu (Laura) Lu

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among a learning organization, knowledge and financial performance using the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire and its abbreviated version. Design/methodology/approach This study used a secondary data set and performed second-order factor analysis and structural equation modeling for testing the proposed relationships. Findings The study found that a learning organization has a positive effect on knowledge performance; knowledge performance has a positive effect on financial performance; and knowledge performance fully mediates the relationship between a learning organization and financial performance. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to validating the current dimensionality of the theoretical framework of a learning organization proposed by Watkins and Marsick (1993, 1996) and offers a valid conceptual framework of the relationship among the learning culture and organizational performance dimensions. Practical implications This study re-stresses the significance of the learning and knowledge generated by the human resources of an organization and developed by human resource development practitioners. Originality/value This study is valuable to human resource development scholars and practitioners interested in improving and measuring organizational performance.

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 188-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Nana Kweku Otoo ◽  
Evelyn Akosua Otoo ◽  
Godfred Kwame Abledu ◽  
Akash Bhardwaj

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of employee performance in the association between human resource development (HRD) practices and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach An integrated research model was developed by combining principal factors from existing literature. Data were collected through questionnaire from 700 employees of the selected pharmaceutical industries. The validity of the model and hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The results indicate that some HRD practices influence organizational performance through their impact on employee performance. The study further revealed that employee performance mediates the association between HRD practices and organizational performance. Research limitations/implications The research was undertaken in the pharmaceutical industry and the analysis is based on cross-sectional data, which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors. Practical implications The findings of the study have the potential to help policy makers, stakeholders and management of pharmaceutical industries in adopting properly and well-articulated HRD practices to enhance the quality of human capital and create sustainable competitive advantage. Originality/value This study extends the literature by adducing evidence empirically that employee performance mediated the association between HRD practices and organizational performance of the pharmaceutical industry in Ghana.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 435-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Nana Kweku Otoo ◽  
Mridula Mishra

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of employee competencies in the association between human resource development (HRD) practices and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach An integrated research model was developed by combining principal factors from existing literature. Data were collected through questionnaire from 600 employees of the selected hotels. The validity of the model and hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The results indicate that some HRD practices impact organizational performance through their influence on employee competencies. The study further revealed that employee competencies mediate the association between HRD practices and organizational performance. Research limitations/implications The research was undertaken in the hotel industry and the analysis based on cross-sectional data which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors. Practical implications The findings of the study have the potential to help stakeholders and management of hotels in adopting properly and well-articulated HRD practices to stimulate positive behavior in individuals and impact their knowledge, skills and attitudes. Originality/value This study extends the literature by adducing evidence that employee competencies mediated the association between HRD practices and organizational performance of the hotel industry in Ghana.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 250-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Nana Kweku Otoo

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of employee competencies in the relationship between human resource development (HRD) practices and organizational effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach An integrated research model was developed by combining principal factors from existing literature. Data were collected through questionnaire from 550 employees of the selected banks. The validity of the model and hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The results indicate that some HRD practices impact organizational effectiveness through their influence on employee competencies. The study further revealed that employee competencies mediate the relationship between HRD practices and organizational effectiveness. Research limitations/implications The research was undertaken in the banking industry and the analysis based on cross-sectional data which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors. Practical implications The findings of the study will help policymakers and management of banks in espousing suitable and well-articulated HRD practices to harness the competencies of employees and inordinately enhance organizational effectiveness. Originality/value This study extends the literature by empirically adducing evidence that employee competencies mediated the relationship between HRD practices and organizational effectiveness of the banking industry in Ghana.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan David Peláez-León ◽  
Gregorio Sánchez-Marín

PurposeThis study analyses whether human resource management (HRM), through the use of four sets of high-performance work policies (HPWPs) (i.e. selection, training, motivation and opportunity policies), mediates the relationship between socioemotional wealth (SEW)—defined as a unique set of nonfinancial family goals—and firm financial performance when family firms face a high-risk context.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses were statistically tested using a structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology with a cross-sectional sample of 196 medium-sized and private family firms in a high-risk context in Spain.FindingsThe results indicate that the relationship between SEW and financial performance in family firms is fully mediated by the use of HPWPs, especially by training and motivation HR policies. The importance given to preserving SEW influences the use of four sets of HPWPs when family firms show clear evidence of being confronted by a financial decline (i.e. a high-risk context). However, to improve their financial results to avoid the firm's failure and thus the loss of their SEW, only those HR policies that focus on training and motivation made a significant and positive contribution to the firm financial performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on family firms and HRM by adopting an alternative theoretical framework to understand how the importance of nonfinancial family goals may affect employee structures and management policies, thereby improving financial performance in family firms.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoungshin Kim

Purpose This study aims to introduce adaptive performance as an organizational performance dimension and examine the possible dynamics between the dimensions of a learning organization and adaptive performance. Design/methodology/approach This study used a survey and applied factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis. Findings The results supported adaptive performance as an organizational performance dimension. Also, the findings of this study empirically proved that perceived knowledge and adaptive performance mediate the positive relationship between a learning organization and perceived financial performance. Research limitations/implications In addition to the current Dimensions of a Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) studies, this study revealed that adaptive performance, one of the nonfinancial outcomes improved by learning, had a significant effect on financial performance. Also, this study provided evidence of the additional construct validity of the DLOQ, particularly its performance measures. Practical implications This study advises practitioners to take a close look at how learning and organization development activities improve organizational performance overall. Originality/value This study supported a claim that learning and organization development activities in organizations have a strong potential to induce variance in intangible performance.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 595-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajashi Ghosh ◽  
Seth Jacobson

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical review of the mediation studies published in the field of Human Resource Development (HRD) to discern if the study designs, the nature of data collection and the choice of statistical methods justify the causal claims made in those studies. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducts a critical review of published refereed articles that examined mediation in Human Resource Development Quarterly, Human Resource Development International, Advances in Developing Human Resources and European Journal of Training and Development. Mediation studies published in these journals from 2000 to 2015 were identified and coded. The four journals sampled were chosen to provide breadth of coverage of the different types of empirical studies published in the field of HRD. Findings The review findings imply that HRD scholars are not employing experimental or longitudinal designs in their studies when randomized experiments and longitudinal studies with at least three waves of data collection are regarded as the golden standards of causal research. Further, the findings indicate that sophisticated statistical modeling approaches like structural equation modeling are widely used to examine mediation in cross-sectional studies and most importantly, a large number of such studies do not acknowledge that cross-sectional data does not allow definite causal claims. Research limitations/implications Although the findings urge us to rethink the inferences of mediation effects reported over the past 15 years in the field of HRD, this study also serves as a guide in thinking about framing and testing causal mediation models in future HRD research and even argues for a paradigm shift from a positivist orientation to critical and postmodern perspectives that can accommodate mixed methods designs for mediation research in HRD. Originality/value This paper presents a critical review of the trends in examining mediation models in the HRD discipline, suggests best practices for researchers examining the causal process of mediation and directs readers to recent methodological articles that have discussed causal issues in mediation studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Fazura Razali ◽  
Ahmad Aizuddin Md Rami ◽  
Nur Shuhamin Nazuri ◽  
Siti Shazwani Ahmad Suhaimi

Excellent human resource development prioritizes organizational performance development elements. Organizational performance in Malaysia’s public sector is a concept that still needs to be explored. To date, improvements to leadership quality in order to enhance employee competence is one of the areas of study that has become the focus of researchers in the field of human resource development. In fact, leadership quality is also influenced by a person’s self-resilience to changes – one such example is police officers’ competence in order to perform their duties well. This study aims to assess the relationship between self-resilience and the leadership qualities of police officers. The study involved the Royal Malaysia Police of the state of Selangor. The study which used a simple randomized quantitative method involved 105 respondents comprised of police officers and other members of the force. Findings of the study indicate highest positive relationships between leadership and competency, resilience and competency, and resilience and leadership, with r values between 0.791 to 0.864. However, the relationship between leadership quality based on education level and length of service (work experience) was not significant. This study shows that there are several elements in human resource development and performance management that can be improved by emphasizing on the leadership aspect in order to improve the competencies of police officers in Malaysia.


1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gusti Kade Sutawa ◽  
, I Komang Gde Bendesa ◽  
I Nyoman Madiun

This study aims to test and analyze impact of human resource development on working motivation of hotel business workers in Bali, impact of human resource development on organizational changes of hotel business in Bali, impact of human resource development on the performance of hotel business in Bali, impact of working motivation against organizational changes in hotel business in Bali, impact of working motivation on the organizations performance of the hotel business in Bali, and impact of organizational changes against organizations performance of the hotel business in Bali. There were 170 respondents of star-rated hotel employees which were selected through purposive sampling technique. Structural Equation Modeling with the application Analysis of Moment Structure was used to analyze the data. The results show that empowerment of human resources (HR) has positive and significant impact on working motivation, organizational changes, and the organization performance of hotel business in Bali, working motivation has positive and significant impact on organizational changes and the organization performance of hotel business in Bali and organizational changes have significant and positive impact on the organization performance of hotel business in Bali. Empowerment variables have the most powerful impact to support the improvement of organizational performance, followed by organizational changes and working motivation variables. The results indicate that human resource empowerment improves the performance of the hotel business in Bali. Therefore, human resource development need to be prioritized in order to improve organizational performance of star hotels in Bali.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 949-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Nana Kweku Otoo

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of employee competencies in the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach An integrated research model was developed by combining principal factors from existing literature. Data were collected through questionnaire from 600 employees of the selected hotels. The validity of the model and hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The results indicate that some HRM practices impact organizational performance through their influence on employee competencies. The study further revealed that employee competencies mediate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance. Research limitations/implications The research was undertaken in the hotel industry and the analysis based on cross-sectional data which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors and international environment. Practical implications The findings of the study have the potential to help policy makers, stakeholders and management of hotels in adopting proper and well-articulated HRM practices in building human capital and stimulating the necessary behaviors that create advantage for the organization. Originality/value This study extends the literature by empirically adducing evidence that employee competencies mediated the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance of the hotel industry in Ghana.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zia Ul Haq

Purpose Despite the significance, no study examines the relationship between supply chain (SC) learning components and focal firm performance. This study aims to investigate different types of SC learning (supplier, customer and internal learning) and their influence on the focal firm’s operational and financial performance. Design/methodology/approach Grounded in knowledge-based view and absorptive capacity theory, this study applies structural equation modeling to test the conceptual model based on data collected from 213 manufacturing firms in China. Findings The findings indicate that supplier and customer learning improve internal learning. Customer and internal learning have direct influence on operational performance, whereas internal learning mediates the relationship between supplier learning and operational performance. Moreover, all three dimensions of SC learning do not affect financial performance directly but operational performance plays the mediating role in their relationship. Research limitations/implications This study only investigates SC learning outcomes without exploring its antecedents. In addition, SC learning and their impacts on firm performance are tested empirically with cross-sectional data collected only from manufacturing firms in China. Practical implications The findings furnish managers to seek for competitive advantages through different types of SC learning. Originality/value This study offers new insights concerning the performance implications of SC learning. It divides SC learning into dimensions and shows the distinctive impacts of these dimensions on focal firm’s performance using an empirical method.


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