EXPLAINING THE LINK BETWEEN HUMAN RESOURCE
PRACTICES AND INNOVATION PERFORMANCE:
THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING PROCESSES*
Paper submitted to the OLKC 2011 Conference, 12-14 April, Hull, UK
KEY WORDS: Human resource practices, innovation, performance, organizational
learning, learning processes.
Victor Oltra**
victor.oltra@uv.es
Department of Management ‘Juan José Renau Piqueras’
University of Valencia, Spain
Joaquin Alegre
joaquin.alegre@uv.es
Department of Management ‘Juan José Renau Piqueras’
University of Valencia, Spain
ABSTRACT
This theoretical paper makes a preliminary attempt to integrate the – so far usually
disconnected – literatures on: (i) linking human resource (HR) practices and innovation
performance, (ii) assessing organizational learning (capability) (OL/C), (iii) linking HR
practices and OL(C), or (iv) linking OL(C) and innovation. We clearly distinguish
between policy-based variables (a system of innovation-triggering HR practices) and
processual, mediating ones of a behavioural nature (a system of knowledge-optimizing
OL processes), all of them eventually impacting on innovation performance (composed
by innovation efficacy and innovation efficiency). The proposed framework is expected
to facilitate further (theoretical and empirical) research into the HR-OL-innovation
connections.
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* Acknowledgement. The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation (ECO2008-00729) for their financial support for this research.
** Corresponding author:
Victor Oltra
Department of Management ‘Juan José Renau Piqueras’
Facultat d’Economia
Universitat de València
Av. Tarongers, s/n
46022 Valencia, Spain