The impact of strategic transformation on employee productivity. Short case studies and research papers that demonstrate best practice in HR
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0069 |
| Pages | 55-57 |
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Published date | 12 February 2018 |
| Author | John J. Oliver |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
HR at work
The impact of strategic transformation
on employee productivity
Short case studies and research papers that demonstrate best
practice in HR
John J. Oliver
Overview
Digital technologies have and will
continue to transform the ways in which
firms manage their business and
employees. The effects of digital
disruptive have created a highly
uncertain and transformative
environment where existing and often
successful HR management strategies
and practices are scrutinized for their
efficacy.
This paper provides a strategic
commentary on the interconnected
areas of corporate strategy and human
resource performance by illustrating
how two organizations adapted and
transformed their businesses to the
demands of an increasingly digital
operating environment. The findings
reveal that both firm’s corporate
objectives and strategies were focused
on ambitious levels of growth and the
opportunities provided by an
increasingly digital environment.
However, both firms had transformed
themselves in different ways with
distinct employee productivity
performance outcomes.
Strategic transformation and
employee productivity
This paper illustrates how media
firms, Sky Plc and Pearson Plc,
adapted, reconfigured and
transformed their businesses to meet
the demands of an operating
environment characterizedby
inexorable changes in digital
technologies.
Over the past 20 years, both firms
have set ambitious corporate
growth objectives and strategies
that focused on taking advantage of
the market opportunities provided
by digitalization and new media.
However, they have executed these
strategies in different ways, with
different outcomes in terms of
employee productivity. For
example, Sky has undertaken three
strategic transformations over this
period that has moved it from being
a “UK-based single product TV firm”
into a “European multi-platform,
multi-product media firm”. The
results have been impressive (see
Figure 1). In contrast, Pearson has
engaged in five strategic
transformations over the same
period, which has repositioned the
firmfrombeinga“holding
company” for a disparate range of
businesses into their current form as
a “global, single product learning
company”. The result of this
transformative process has been a
consistent decline in corporate
revenues and low levels of
employee productivity.
John J. Oliver is based at the Faculty
of Media & Communication,
Bournemouth University,
Bournemouth, UK.
DOI 10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0069 VOL. 17 NO. 1 2018, pp. 55-57, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jPAGE 55
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