Organizational success, human resources practices and exploration–exploitation learning

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analyze which policies of human resource management (HRM) contribute to exploratory learning and which to exploitation learning; and second, to determine the influence of the two types of learning on organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach The research hypotheses are tested by partial least squares with data from a sample of 100 Spanish hotels. Findings The results confirm that, in order of importance, selective staffing, comprehensive training and an equitable reward system lead to exploratory learning. Exploitative learning seems to be fundamentally driven by comprehensive training and an equitable reward system (but in a different way than with exploratory learning). Finally, both types of learning have a positive impact on performance. Practical implications Both exploratory and exploitative learning result from HRM practices. To maintain performance expectations managers should develop both learning types, which entails the utilization of the best HRM practices. Originality/value This study presents empirical evidence around the findings of other studies (Laursen and Foss, 2014; Minbaeva, 2013) which call for further research into whether strategic HRM configurations have positive effects on the two learning types. The results find some practices that have a positive effect in both cases, but with different intensities in their explanations. This finding reveals the need for more detailed exploration around which combinations of HRM practices, in terms of exploratory vs exploitative learning, are advisable for organizations. The study also finds that the two learning types have a positive influence on organizational performance.