Human resource practices, employee competencies and firm performance: a 2-1-2 multilevel mediational analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukhpreet Kaur ◽  
Gurvinder Kaur

PurposeThis study aims to understand the role of employee competencies in terms of the relationship between Human Resource Practices (HRPs) and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 60 HR managers and 546 employees from large-scale food processing firms were considered for the study. The study presents a 2-1-2 multilevel mediational analysis in which HRPs and firm performance are measured at the firm level (Level-2) and employee competencies are measured at employee level (Level-1).FindingsPositive relationship was found between HRPs and firm performance, which was partially mediated by employee competencies.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the importance of employee-related factors by focusing on the wider dimensions of human capital (e.g. academic qualification, job experience) in HRPs–performance relationship.Originality/valueThe study undertakes a 2-1-2 multilevel mediational analysis, which is rarely applied in HRM studies; however, this interaction between macro- and microlevel effects will create a better understanding of organization studies from an integrated and multilevel context.

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukhpreet Kaur ◽  
Gurvinder Kaur

PurposeThe study aims at understanding the impact of individual and bundle of human resource practices (HRPs) on employee competencies. It also compares the impact of the bundle of HRPs with individual HRPs on employee competencies to examine the synergy effect.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypothesis, a sample of 229 respondents from the Indian food processing industry was taken. This included managerial and nonmanagerial personnel from four large scale food processing firms. The impact was analyzed through several structural equations.FindingsThe individual HRPs are positively related to employee competencies. Recruitment and selection have the least impact, and employee participation has the maximum impact on employee competencies. However, the bundle of HRPs has a positive and stronger impact on employee competencies than when they are studied individually.Practical implicationsThe results of this study bring a wide array of managerial implications for the food processing industry. It recommends the management to adopt proper and well-structured HRPs for the food processing industry.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies that utilizes resource-based view (RBV) and human capital theory (HCT) for investigating the relationship between HRPs and employee competencies in the Indian context. It attempts to increase the understanding regarding an important strategic HR concept (i.e. bundle of HRPs) on employee competencies.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishant Uppal

PurposeDrawing on the interactionist approach and interest alignment theory, this study aims to examine the mediating effects of three dimensions of person environment fit – person–organisation fit, person–job fit and person–supervisor fit – on the relationship between high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP) and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data obtained from 3,014 employees of research and development units and 721 senior HR executives and top management team members belonging to 274 Indian-based pharmaceutical firms is analysed to investigate a mediated pathway between HPHRP and firm performance.FindingsThe findings of the current research established that HPHRP was positively and significantly related to person–organisation fit, person–job fit and person–supervisor fit, and this facilitates firm performance and curtails employee turnover.Originality/valueThe current work firmly establishes a link between human resource management with firm performance using interactionist approach. Implications of the study to theory and practice are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei-Chi Chen ◽  
Nai-Wen Chi

PurposeBased on the service-profit chain perspective, this study investigates whether service-oriented human resource practices can enhance customer outcomes through motivational mechanisms (i.e. intrinsic/extrinsic satisfaction) as well as emotional mechanisms (i.e. emotional labor strategies).Design/methodology/approachThis study collected paired data from 220 service workers and their customers at different time points from 80 service firms. Multilevel path-analysis was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsOur results indicate that firm-level extensive training is positively related to service workers' intrinsic job satisfaction, which in turn increases deep acting. In addition, firm-level incentive compensation is positively associated with service workers' extrinsic job satisfaction, which in turn reduces surface acting. Finally, service employee's deep acting enhances customer loyalty and willingness to recommend via customer satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe service organization should (1) stress the importance of incentive compensation to decrease surface acting via enhancing extrinsic job satisfaction and (2) provide extensive service training to improve service employees' intrinsic satisfaction and deep acting, leading to favorable customer outcomes.Originality/valueThe present study identifies the critical roles of motivational and emotional mechanisms in transferring service-oriented human resource practices to customer outcomes and employing rigorous research design to enhance the internal/external validity of our findings.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Yamada ◽  
Tien Manh Vu

Abstract In literature, there is limited direct evidence regarding the effect of health insurance coverage on firm performance and worker productivity. We study the impacts of health insurance on medium- and large-scale domestic private firms’ performance and productivity in Vietnam, using a large firm level census dataset. We find statistically, but suggestive, positive health insurance effects on both aggregate profit and profit per worker for both complying and non-complying firms when using the full sample. We further restrict the sample to specific industries. The positive health insurance effects could exist for both complying and non-complying firms in the heavy manufacturing and construction sector, while such positive effects could be only significant for complying firms in the wholesale/retail sectors. We could not find any evidence of positive health insurance effects in the light manufacturing sector. These results imply that the impacts of health insurance could be industry specific.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiayang Tang ◽  
Jorge Tiago Martins

PurposeDrawing on theories pertaining to knowledge sharing, ageing at work and human resource practices for ageing workers, this article explores knowledge sharing challenges arising from the interaction between an increasingly ageing workforce and younger employees.Design/methodology/approachContextually, the authors focus on China, where the pace of demographic transformations offers a unique opportunity to investigate knowledge sharing practices in their socio-economic context. Empirically, the authors analyse knowledge sharing behaviours and practices of retail banking professionals in a Chinese big four bank.FindingsThe encouragement of knowledge sharing between younger and older workers should be incorporated into organisations' human resource strategies. The availability of development, maintenance, utilisation and accommodative human resource practices signals to older workers that they are valuable and are worth investing in.Originality/valueThe authors’ contribution to theory and practice is twofold: starting with the identification of perceived knowledge sharing challenges, the authors’ analysis offers important contextually grounded insights into what types of managerial practices are relevant in eliciting successful knowledge sharing within organisations faced with an ageing workforce.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 703-715
Author(s):  
Monica Colon-Aguirre ◽  
Katy Kavanagh Webb

PurposeThe main purpose of this work is to uncover and identify the issues that academic librarians consider important in the attainment of work–life balance. This work will focus on exploring their experiences with different dimensions of burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe topic of burnout is explored by analyzing the results of a survey based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which was distributed among librarians at a group academic institutions that are members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL).FindingsThe findings of this study do not demonstrate evidence of burnout among the sample population. However, the results do present plenty of opportunities for further exploration such as the relationship between burnout and personal factors, including LGBTQA + status and race or ethnic minority status.Research limitations/implicationsFurther exploration of the topic of burnout should be followed up with more qualitative studies, especially those employing interviews.Practical implicationsImprovement of human resource practices, which reduces the incidence of burnout among academic librarians, is something that can only be accomplished at the organizational level. Human resource practices can create a work environment that enhances productivity by improving the quality of life of employees.Originality/valueThis work explores and assesses academic librarian burnout, among those working in academic institutions in the southeastern United States. To date, no study has been undertaken that looks at burnout across broad types of work performed by academic librarians and librarians at different institutions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charilaos Mertzanis ◽  
Mona Said

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of access to skilled labor in explaining firms’ sales growth subject to the controlling influence of a wide range of firm-specific characteristics and country-level economic and non-economic factors. Design/methodology/approach The analysis uses a consistent and large firm-level data set from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys that includes 138 developing countries. An instrumental variables model with a GMM estimator is used for estimating the impact of access to skilled labor on firm performance. In order to obtain more robust estimators, the analysis introduces country-level controls reflecting the influence of economic and institutional factors, such as economic and financial development, institutional governance, education and technological progress. Findings The results document a significant and positive association between access to skilled labor and firm performance in the developing world. The explanatory power of access to skilled labor remains broadly robust after controlling for a wide range of firm-specific characteristics: sectoral and geographical influences matter. The results also show that the association between labor skill constraints and firm performance is mitigated by country-level factors but in diverse ways. Development, institutions, education and technological progress exert various mitigating effects on firm-level behavior regarding access to skilled labor. Originality/value The paper’s novel contribution is threefold: first, it uses joint firm, sector and country-level information to analyze the role of access to skilled labor on firm performance; second, it uses consistently produced information at the firm level from 138 developing countries; and, third, it considers the controlling impact of a wide range of country-level factors that reflect a country’s overall development, institutions and evolution.


Author(s):  
Qing Hu ◽  
Robert T. Plant

The promise of increased competitive advantage has been the driving force behind the large-scale investment in information technology (IT) over the last three decades. There is a continuing debate among executives and academics as to the measurable benefits of this investment. The return on investment (ROI) and other performance measures reported in the academic literature indicate conflicting empirical findings. Many previous studies have based their conclusions on the statistical correlation between IT capital investment and firm performance data of the same time period. In this study we argue that the causal relationship between IT investment and firm performance could not be reliably established through concurrent IT and performance data. We further submit that it would be more convincing to infer causality if the IT investments in the preceding years are significantly correlated with the performance of a firm in the subsequent year. Using the Granger causality models and three samples of firm-level financial data, we found no statistical evidence that IT investments have caused the improvement of financial performance of the firms in the samples. On the contrary, the causal models suggest that improved financial performance over consecutive years may have contributed to the increase of IT investment in the subsequent year. Implications of these findings as well as directions for future studies are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiradip Bandyopadhyay ◽  
Kailash B. L. Srivastava

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reframe human resources' (HR) systems and practices as HR signals drawing from conceptualizations of signals. The construct of the strength of signal is developed to quantify the attributional ability of HR signals. To examine the role of HR signals in influencing employee behaviours and firm performance, human resource management (HRM)-firm performance relationship is considered as a framework to develop a firm-level conceptual model which integrates factors affecting HR signals and its consequences.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the existing literature on the relationship between HRM and firm performance. In the process, the paper considers the concept of HR signal and makes a case for the strength of HR signal. Finally, the paper offers a conceptual model in order to link the antecedents and consequents of HR signals.FindingsThe paper offers a conceptual model to address the gaps in the relationship between HRM and firm performance. It also brings into focus an understanding of HRM as signals and its importance in understanding firm performance.Originality/valueThe paper enriches the existing literature by examining HRM as HR signals. It adds to the literature by considering the attributional ability of HR, through the construct of the strength of HR signals.


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