The impact of HR development on innovative performances in central and eastern European countries
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2017-0188 |
| Published date | 06 August 2018 |
| Date | 06 August 2018 |
| Pages | 762-786 |
| Author | Nemanja Berber,Bojan Lekovic |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
The impact of HR development on
innovative performances in central
and eastern European countries
Nemanja Berber and Bojan Lekovic
Faculty of Economics in Subotica, University of Novi Sad,
Subotica, Serbia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to research the impact of one of HRM activities, employees’
development, on the level of organizational innovative performances. HR development techniques that
organizations use in order to develop employee’s knowledge, skills and abilities and their impact on the
perceived level of organizational innovativeness was set in the focus of research, with the intent of
determining which development techniques influence organizational innovative performance.
Design/methodology/approach –The research is based on the data from CRANET project, which has
been largely used in exploring the relation between HRM activities and other variables of organizational
behavior and performances. Data for this study were collected from a sample of 1,384 organizations from
8 CEE countries (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia) for the period
2015–2016. The correlation was used to explore the relations between variables. Ordinal logistic regression
was used in order to explore the relations between the employees’development techniques, training
importance and training effectiveness and the level of organizational innovativeness.
Findings –The regression model showed that there are a statistically significant relations between the
effectivenessof training expressedby systematic evaluationof training practice, and themethods of employees’
training(use of projects to stimulatelearning, on-the-jobtraining, developmentcenters, use of internationalwork
assignmentsand mentoring) with the level of innovation.The importance of training practiceexpressed by the
ratio of the annualtraining budget in the totalpayroll costs did not show statistically significantrelations with
the level of innovation. Also, systematic estimation of the need for training of personnel has not shown
statistically significant relationswith the innovation rate of the organization.
Research limitations/implications –The data are derived from single source respondents, and response
rates between countries do vary. At the country level, every effort is made to represent the structure of the
economy in the country and at the point in which the data are being collected.
Practical implications –Training and international working assignments have a direct positive relation
with the level of organizational performances, while teamwork and coaching and mentoring have not shown
the same. Organizations and their HR managers should pay special attention to planningand implementation
of HR development programs –coaching, mentoring and teamwork –in order to create space for
organizational innovation enhancement.
Originality/value –Previous literature seeking to clarify the role of HRM and fostering organizational
innovation has made its evident contribution based on theoretical papers. In order to improve the current
situation in which empirical evidence is very rare, research on the significance of the employee development
program and its impact on the organizational innovative performances is based on quantitative indicators of
the conducted research. The relation of HRM and innovative performances in the CEE region was studied in
only a few studies. In the previous period, this region has often been omitted in the field of HRM research.
Therefore, an additional novelty can be derived from a research sample compiled from the CEE region
countries in the conducted research.
Keywords Performance, Innovation, Employee development, CEE region
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Today, the success and sustainability of organizations is usually reflected in their ability to
innovate their processes, products and services (Drucker, 1998; Heunks, 1998; McGrath,
2001; Shipton et al., 2005; Shipton et al., 2006; Sanchez and Ricart, 2010; Ngo and O’cass,
2013; Nagano et al., 2014; Carayannis et al., 2015; Fu et al., 2015). Innovation relates to new
products and services, production methods and procedures, production technologies and
Employee Relations
Vol. 40 No. 5, 2018
pp. 762-786
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2017-0188
Received 14 August 2017
Revised 22 November 2017
6 February 2018
Accepted 8 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
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administrative changes (Fay et al., 2015), and it is seen as an organization-wide activity that
represents the outcome of creative endeavor (Shipton et al., 2017).
Although innovation is critically important to a company’s success, there is some
evidence that most companies do not have enough capabilities to truly accelerate innovation
(Wagner et al., 2014; Michaelis and Markham, 2017). The question is how to make
organizations more successful in the innovation process? There are many possibilities for
acceleration of innovation, like implementation of the open innovation concept (Chesbrough,
2017), R&D activities (Trott, 2012; Berchicci, 2013; González et al., 2016), engagement of
innovation consultant –outsourcing (Inauen and Schenker-Wicki, 2011; Rozdolskaya et al.,
2013), creation of multifunctional teams (Lopez‐Cabrales et al., 2009; Stock et al., 2014),
internationalization and international multifunctional teams and working assignments
(Sapouna et al., 2016), participative leadership (Liao et al., 2010; Yoshida et al., 2014), design
thinking (Leavy, 2010; Liedtka, 2015), etc. The most of above-mentioned activities are in
strong relation with people engaged. For the purpose of this paper, we decided to explore
those factors related to the enhancement of innovative performances in organizations.
Human resource management is one of them (Shipton et al., 2005; Shipton et al., 2006;
Jiménez-Jiménez and Sanz-Valle, 2008; Chowhan, 2016; Shipton et al., 2017; Lin and Sanders,
2017; Seeck and Diehl, 2017), especially employees’learning and development
(Bauernschuster et al., 2009; Nazarov and Akhmedjonov, 2012; González et al., 2016;
Michaelis and Markham, 2017).
One of the most important parts of modern organizations is HRM, as a management
function that manages employees’efforts, skills, knowledge and abilities in order to reach
organizational goals. HRM and its main activities such as HR planning, staffing,
employees’training, career development, performance management, compensation and
benefits, retirement, health and safety, etc., are seen as a factor for gaining competitive
advantage and successful organizational performances in contemporary business (Wright
et al., 1994; Bowen and Ostroff, 2004; Shipton et al., 2006; Chadwick and Dabu, 2009;
Savaneviciene and Stankeviciute, 2013; Albrecht et al., 2015; Slavićand Berber, 2016;
Kloutsiniotis and Mihail, 2017). Inside HRM, employees’development takes special place
since it is directly related to the increase and enhancement of employees’knowledge,
skills and abilities (KSA), their overall competencies, which have two significant results –
abilities for reaching higher organizational performances, and personal development
goals and employees’satisfaction.
Nowadays, research studies are starting to explore the role of HRM in fostering
organizational innovation. Empirical evidence still remains contradictory and rare
(Shipton et al., 2017). In order to decrease this gap between HRM and innovative
performances, we explored the impact of the one of the HRM activities, employees’
development, on the level of organizational innovative performances. The main goal of the
research is to determine which development techniques influence organizational innovative
performance, and what the level of that influence is. The subject of the research is HR
development techniques that organizations use in order to develop employees’KSA and their
impact on the perceived level of organizational innovativeness. The novelty of this research is
expressed in the presentation of the region that was taken for the analysis (sample of the
countries) –Central and Eastern Europe. The CEE region was usually neglected in HRM
studies in thepast period (Morley et al., 2016; Berber et al., 2017) and the relation of HRM and
innovative performances in this region was explored in only a few studies (Nazarov and
Akhmedjonov, 2012; Slavićand Berber, 2014; Slavićet al., 2014; Morley et al., 2016).
Regarding the data and sample, the research is based on the data from the CRANET project,
which has been largely used in exploring the relation between HRM activities and other
variables of organizational behavior and performances. We explored 1,384 organizations from
8 CEE countries. The methodology used in the research is also based on the CRANET project.
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