Human resource flexibility and performance in the hotel industry. The role of organizational ambidexterity
| Date | 05 June 2017 |
| Pages | 824-846 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-12-2015-0315 |
| Published date | 05 June 2017 |
| Author | Mercedes Úbeda-García,Enrique Claver-Cortés,Bartolomé Marco-Lajara,Patrocinio Zaragoza-Sáez |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Human resource flexibility and
performance in the hotel industry
The role of organizational ambidexterity
Mercedes Úbeda-García, Enrique Claver-Cortés,
Bartolomé Marco-Lajara and Patrocinio Zaragoza-Sáez
Departament d’Organitzacio d’Empreses, Universitat d’Alacant, Alicante, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore if human resource (HR) flexibility facilitates the
development of organizational ambidexterity, which in turn has positive effects on firm 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 a total mediator effect of organizational ambidexterity on the relationship
between HR flexibility and performance. However, it was not possible to check that such flexibility directly
influences performance. This may be due to the fact that HR flexibility has a gradual effect on the
development of organizational ambidexterity.
Research limitations/implications –The results of this study contribute to the knowledge on the impact
of HR flexibility on performance. This paper, thus, stresses the strategic role that HRs play within
organizations, insofar as their flexibility makes it possible to develop a highly relevant organizational
capability such as ambidexterity. The study’s limitations are the analysis technique utilized (it assumes
linearity between latent variables) and that the research only explores the hotel industry.
Practical implications –HR managers need to consider that HR flexibility contributes to developing
organizational ambidexterity and the ability to combine the learning of exploration and exploitation, which
affects the firm’s performance and, therefore its competitiveness.
Originality/value –The results of this study can contribute to broaden the knowledge about the impact of
HR flexibility on performance. In fact, the studies on HR flexibility performed so far have focused on
analysing the role played by that flexibility as a mediator variable between high performance work system
and performance. This work goes one step further, trying to examine the extent to which HR flexibility
influences the ability to undertake exploitation and exploration processes at the same time. This paper, thus,
stresses the strategic role that HRs play within organizations, insofar as their flexibility makes it possible to
develop a highly relevant organizational capability as is ambidexterity.
Keywords Quantitative, Firm performance, Organizational ambidexterity, Human resource flexibility
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Two topics have been at the foreground of human resource (HR) management studies in
recent years. The first is the utilization of high commitment and/or high performance work
systems (HPWS) (Arthur, 1994; Pfeffer, 1994; Sanders et al., 2014) by organizations, whereas
the second focuses on the forms of organization that can provide firms with workforce
flexibility (Kalleberg, 2001, 2003; Vela-Jiménez et al., 2014; De Lastra et al., 2014; Natasaputra
and Kusumastuti, 2016). Labour flexibility is a very important topic in every organization,
but even more so within highly labour-intensive sectors strongly affected by seasonality,
as is the case of the hotel industry (Knox and Walsh, 2005; Hoque, 2013; Duncan et al., 2013;
Yaduma et al., 2015).
The combination of these two characteristics makes the hotel industry of special interest
when it comes to studying HR flexibility. This has been of great concern within the Spanish
tourism sector lately. Labour flexibility is often understood in an incorrect and incomplete
way, since it exclusively refers to the use of work contracts with a fixed duration or focuses
on the reduction of redundancy costs. In fact, one of the main problems faced by the hotel
industry is the high-staff turnover derived from its partially understood labour flexibility.
Personnel Review
Vol. 46 No. 4, 2017
pp. 824-846
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-12-2015-0315
Received 11 December 2015
Revised 2 May 2016
Accepted 7 June 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
824
PR
46,4
Furthermore, the development recently experienced by the notion of organizational
ambidexterity offers a new perspective from which different organizational aspects –
amongst them, HR management –can be analysed (Glaister et al., 2015; Patel et al., 2013;
Prieto and Pérez Santana, 2012; Kang and Snell, 2009).
Even though progress has been made in research on HR flexibility and organizational
ambidexterity, no works relating both concepts have been written so far. Nevertheless, these
topics raise a number of questions such as: does HR flexibility influence the development of
the ambidextrous learning capacity? Does HR flexibility have an impact on organizational
performance? Is organizational ambidexterity positively related to business results? Does
organizational ambidexterity mediate between HR flexibility and performance? The search
for answers to these questions is what led us to write the present paper and a sample of
Spanish hotels is utilized to this end. Our choice of this industry is due to its great interest in
the issue of HR flexibility and the fact that the ability to exploit knowledge (in order to be
efficient and competitive via prices) no longer suffices; the need arises for hotels to
simultaneously develop the capacity to explore new knowledge (seeking to innovate and
offer differential services with respect to competitors).
Organizational ambidexterity
The bibliography dedicated to organizational ambidexterity has tended to revolve around
how to achieve balance and simultaneity between exploration-based and exploitation-based
learning. Several options have been suggested in the bibliography. The first is known as
structural, partit ional or reciprocal am bidexterity (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004;
Simsek et al., 2009; Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008; Chebbi et al., 2015). This sort of
ambidexterity achieves a combination between both types of learning through the creation
of structural mechanisms that make possible either the alternation between exploitation and
exploration periods or the coincidence in time between both types of learning, though in
various organizational units with different structural configurations.
Another alternative regards organizational ambidexterity as a capacity of leaders
(Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; Mom et al., 2009; Zimmermann et al., 2015). From this
perspective, ambidexterity would be achieved if executives’behaviour is oriented towards
the combination of exploratory and exploitative activities.
Finally, there is contextual or harmonic contextual ambidexterity (Simsek et al., 2009;
Hahn et al., 2016), which arises when the organization designs social and behavioural
mechanisms which allow employees to follow both types of learning (Prieto and
Pérez Santana, 2012). This perspective establishes the importance of building a specific
organizational context which allows and encourages individuals to think for themselves
about how to better divide their time between the conflicting demands for exploitation
and exploration. As stressed by Ahammad et al. (2015), contextual ambidexterity assumes
that the ambidexterity of an organization as a whole derives from specific actions
carried out by individuals; in other words, it is indissolubly linked to the firm’seffortsto
manage its HRs.
Therefore, organizations which pursue ambidextrous behaviour should develop the
functional aspect of their HRs so that they can devote their efforts to activities associated
with both exploitation and exploration (Cordery et al., 1993; Lepak et al., 2003).
The expression “HR flexibility”consequently appears as an antecedent variable of
organizational ambidexterity.
HR flexibility
Within the strategic approach to HR management, researchers have advocated flexibility in
HR systems and processes to help the organization adapt to a complex and dynamic
environment (Lengnick-Hall and Lengnick-Hall, 1988; Snow and Snell, 1992; Ketkar and
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flexibility
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