سیستم منابع انسانی، فرهنگ سازمانی و نوآوری محصول

This paper outlines the critical role of organizational culture in the link between the HR system and development of new products and services. While it has been generally accepted that an innovation-oriented HR system would lead to higher level of innovation, the literature does not lend full support to this link. This paper is to point out the inadequacy of such simplified view. It is suggested that a developmental culture is the missing link in-between HR system and innovation outcomes. An HR system which emphasizes extensive training, performance-based reward, and team development is necessary to create an organizational culture that is conducive to product innovation. The empirical findings from a survey of 332 firms in Hong Kong confirmed that organizational culture acted as a mediator between a firm's HR system and product innovation.

For some years now, the notion of best practices in human resource management (HRM) has received a lot of attention. It has been suggested that there is a universal set of human resource (HR) best practices that can enhance a firm's performance (Pfeffer, 1998). However, this notion of HR best practices is not well supported in the research literature (Delaney and Huselid, 1996 and Wright and McMahan, 1992), including in studies using international samples (Lui, Lau, & Ngo, 2004). Marchington and Grugulis (2000) called this ‘the illusion of best practice’. They claimed that in order to determine the effectiveness of HR, the context in which HR is practiced must be included in the analysis. McMahan, Virick, and Wright (1999) reviewed the theoretical development of strategic human resource management (SHRM) and concluded that SHRM could be viewed as a configuration of HR practices, which must be internally and externally consistent, and hence integration and fit is needed. It is understandable that HR practices seldom lead directly to a high level of firm performance (Delery, 1998). Instead, they influence firm resources, which are ultimately linked to performance. Moreover, different types of HR practices commonly employed by organizations may bring about different outcomes for organizations (Ulrich, 1997). We contend that the simple relationship between HR and firm performance as suggested in some literature is inadequate. The current literature indicates that it is not fruitful to examine just a single type of HR practice and its influence on a firm's performance. Instead, bundles of HR practices and their contingent effects have to be analyzed (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004, Delery and Doty, 1996 and Wright and Boswell, 2002). In this paper, therefore, the effect of HR on organizational outcomes is examined by considering the integration of complementary HR practices as an HR system, and the fit of HR practices with organizational culture. Since developing innovative products and services is critical for a firm's competitiveness in the market, we therefore focus on product (and services) innovation as an important indicator of firm outcomes. Innovation represents an orientation fundamentally different from traditional financial or market-based outcomes of a firm. Muffatto (1998) suggested that in the innovation process, the creation of an innovative climate and related professional knowledge and capabilities are needed to support innovation activities. Hence, there is a need to change organizational arrangement and culture in order to foster innovation. This argument is in line with human capital theory used to explain an organization's competitiveness in innovation outcomes (Chacko and Wacker, 2001, Chan et al., 2004 and McMahan et al., 1999). For innovation-oriented firms, HR must then be practiced with innovation-enhancing HR policies (Searle & Ball, 2003). These policies may differ from conventional HR practices in stable environment (Ulrich, 1997). We first review the link between HR and firm outcomes in Section 2. The review identifies a missing critical process variable in the link in the current literature. The necessary components of a HR system for innovation are then presented, followed by a discussion of the critical role of organizational culture in this link. Two hypotheses are first developed according to the conventional arguments, a third hypothesis focusing on the mediating role of organizational culture is then suggested as a better alternative. It is suggested that there must be an integration of HR systems and organization cultures in order to have effects on innovation performance. The empirical findings of a study testing the proposed relationships are reported with some suggestions for further research. A firm-level conceptual framework is developed in this study to explain how HR is related to innovation performance, as a response to the call for more theoretical development in HR research (Ferris et al., 1998). Two issues about the relationship between HR practices and firm effectiveness are explored. First, several HR practices are suggested as the necessary components of an innovation-oriented HR system. These practices are identified and their impacts on product innovation are evaluated. Second, we also examine whether organizational culture acts as an intervening factor between the HR system and product innovation. Prior studies suggested that an internally consistent HR system which emphasizes investing in human capital, compensating people for performance, and committing to team development is critical for the success of innovation-oriented firms (Lado and Wilson, 1994, McMahan et al., 1999 and Muffatto, 1998). By building such a HR system, a firm would be able to develop an organizational culture with an innovative and entrepreneurial orientation. With such an innovative culture in place, a higher level of innovation would result. It follows that to achieve performance in product innovation, an innovation-oriented organizational culture must be supported by an HR system that facilitates the development of new products and services. A primary contribution of this study lies in developing a mediation model that helps to explain the relationship between HR and firm performance (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004 and Delery, 1998). Additionally, the study focuses on some macro-level variables and constructs across industries, which helps to clarify the cross-level analysis issues in HR studies (Wright & Boswell, 2002). Further, the international sample used in this study enhances the validity of HR—firm outcome research in other cultural contexts (Bae & Rowley, 2001).

To summarize, the current study proposed a macro-level mediation framework to explicate the HR—innovation performance relationship by introducing organizational culture as the key vehicle for channeling the effects of HR practices on innovation performance. This facilitates the development of macro-level models (Ferris et al., 1998 and Wright and Boswell, 2002) to aid future research in three directions. Firstly, it helps to improve the interaction view of organizational systems. In particular, the interactions among different HR practices (such as compensation and training) and their impacts on firm outcomes have not been explicitly investigated. The current study supports the ‘fit as bundles’ view, and future HR research may explore more closely the other interaction views of fit (Guest, 1997). Secondly, the links among organizational culture, HR system, and other organizational components (such as strategy) are not yet fully understood (Ogbonna & Whipp, 1999). Although in this study the interaction of HR practices with organizational culture was not supported empirically, the possible interactions between innovation-oriented HR practices with other practices (such as employee participation and self-managing teams) and other management techniques (such as empowerment) have not been examined. Further, the longitudinal impact of the HR system (or any other structural variables) on innovation outcome is not yet fully determined. Future studies should develop a longitudinal framework to assess the impact of HR on firm innovation. Thirdly, the impacts of the HR process on individuals have not been adequately theorized (see Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni, 1994 and Wright and Boswell, 2002). This involves a cross-level conceptual development and empirical testing with sophisticated research design. The macro-micro link seems to be a fruitful avenue for future studies. For practitioners, the current study points out that a simple relationship between HR systems or organizational culture and innovation outcomes should not be assumed. An innovation-oriented HR system has to rely on an appropriate organizational culture in order to have impacts on innovation. HR system alone may not be able to elicit innovation performance. Thus, the need to build up shared schemas and mindsets around innovation in organizations is critical for new product development. More emphasis could also be given to the fit of this type of culture with HR system in order to develop an effective organization.