Individual Performance in Turbulent Environments: The Role of Organizational Learning Capability and Employee Flexibility

Abstract

Organizational learning capability (OLC) and employee flexibility help firms navigate the challenges faced by organizations operating in turbulent environments. OLC includes dimensions such as experimentation, risk taking, openness, dialogue, and participative decision making. Employee flexibility is considered a crucial tool for strategic human resource management in tackling environmental turbulence. Accordingly, we pose the following research question: how, and to what extent, is individual performance enhanced by OLC and employee flexibility in turbulent environments? The major impact that environmental turbulence has on change and flexibility requirements suggests that employee flexibility plays an important role in the impact OLC has on individual performance. However, we found no prior studies that explicitly analyzed this mediating function of employee flexibility. In this study, we tested three hypotheses that link OLC and individual performance, OLC and employee flexibility, and employee flexibility and individual performance. We applied a structural equation methodology, using partial least squares path modeling, to a sample of 174 academics at a Latin American university (a highly turbulent context). Our results show employee flexibility fully mediates the relation between OLC and individual performance given the presence of environmental turbulence

Human resource flexibility and performance in the hotel industry

“…Those who have acquired a large number of skills which allow them to perform a wide range of tasks are flexible employees. A flexible employee is thus one who shows the ability to work on different tasks and under various circumstances, a low cost and a short period of time being required to mobilize this employee to new functions or jobs (Riley and Lockwood, 1997;Van den Berg and Van der Velde, 2005;De Lastra et al, 2014;Camps et al, 2015). And on the other hand, skill flexibility is also related to the ability of employees to develop a broad variety of skills in the future (Wright and Snell, 1998;Maurer et al, 2003;Martin et al, 2013).…”

“…Employees with a broad knowledge base contribute to the organization's competitive advantage because this base generates higher capabilities to develop more efficient means to fulfil the different task requirements (Wright et al, 1994;Boxall, 1999;Boxall, 2013). A number of studies assume that greater flexibility increases employees' level of satisfaction and motivation and, accordingly, their productivity (Cordery et al, 1993Camps et al, 2015.…”

“…By way of example, works placed within the framework of the human capital theory argue that the set of capabilities and skills underlying flexibility in human resources determines their capacity to be responsible for several activities inside the organization (Rönnmar, 2004;Camps et al, 2015). Employees with a broad knowledge base contribute to the organization's competitive advantage because this base generates higher capabilities to develop more efficient means to fulfil the different task requirements (Wright et al, 1994;Boxall, 1999;Boxall, 2013).…”

“…This research sees organizational ambidexterity as the final variable promoted by internal flexibility; in other words, internal flexibility does not constitute an end in itself but a means to develop organizational capabilities (Lado and Wilson, 1994;Shafer et al, 2001;Aagaard and Andersen 2014), among which would stand out ambidexterity or the ability to undertake exploratory and exploitative learning at the same time (Jerez-Gomez et al, 2005;Camps et al, 2015). Exploratory learning presupposes the search for new knowledge to create new customer value or to replace a firm's present knowledge with the aim of improving current customer value.…”

“…Within the strategic approach to human resource management, researchers have advocated flexibility in human resource systems and processes to help the organization adapt to a complex and dynamic environment (Lengnick-Hall and Lengnick-Hall, 1988;Snow and Snell, 1993;Ketkar and Sett, 2009;Way et al, 2012;Camps et al, 2015). From this point of view, human resource flexibility is conceived as a capability through which the organization can more easily adapt to environmental contingency changes (Snell, Youndt, and Wright, 1996;Tracey, 2012;Camps et al, 2015 Sekhar, Patwardhan andVyas, 2016), where both intangible assets, such as knowledge and other tangible ones, play a role in the determination of competitive advantage (Hitt et al 2001;Miller and Lee, 2001;Sirmon, Hitt and Ireland, 2007;Aryee et al, 2016).…”