Managing knowledge through human resource practices: empirical examination on the Spanish automotive industry

This paper considers the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and knowledge management (KM). Specifically, it examines how the human resource (HR) practices that are expected to impact on employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunity to engage in KM, do so by enabling knowledge sharing, knowledge maintaining, and knowledge creation within organizations. HRM expected to impact employees’ abilities include training and development practices. HRM expected to impact on employees’ motivation include rewards and appraisal practices. HRM expected to impact on employees’ opportunities including providing the support of trusting collaborative relationships. Therefore, HR practices impacting employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunities are expected to be positively related to knowledge sharing and maintaining within organizations. HR practices impacting employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunity are expected to be positively related to knowledge creation through their effect on knowledge sharing within organizations. Our research methodology uses a questionnaire survey approach to collect data from firms belonging to the Spanish automotive industry. Results from a final sample of 64 Spanish automotive firms show that HR practices aimed at motivating and giving employees the opportunity to behave as expected significantly affect knowledge sharing and maintaining. Further, knowledge sharing and maintaining is shown to mediate the relationship between HR practices and knowledge creation. The paper ends with a conclusion, limitations and implications for future research.     

Learning to manage: development experiences of hospital frontline managers

In high performing human resource management (HRM) systems, much responsibility for managing employees and associated processes is typically devolved to frontline managers (FLMs). Research indicates that undeveloped FLM HRM ability can impact performance, particularly in health‐care organisations. We present the incidence and characteristics of HRM‐oriented learning and development programs for FLMs in hospitals with high performing systems of HRM, and experiences of FLMs directly participating in them. We combine data from 50 Australian hospital accreditation reports with interviews from eight ‘high performance HRM’ cases. We find: almost all high performers develop FLM HRM ability; development programs are extremely diverse between hospitals and succession planning is deficient. While primarily focused on understanding ability, the study contributes to the ability, motivation, opportunity framework, proposing a model and new interrelationships between these variables in the FLM context.     

‘High potential’ programs: Let's hear it for ‘B’ players

Organizations implement ‘high potential’ (HiPo) programs to identify, develop and retain their most talented employees (also known as ‘A’ players). However, there is still not much known on how these programs affect other employees (i.e., ‘B’ players) who are not included. Drawing on Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) framework on the strength of HRM system and attribution theory, we theoretically examine the impact of HiPo programs on ‘B’ players’ attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, we propose that ‘B’ players use various information and contextual cues to make attributions about these programs. We also propose that trust moderates the relationship between various meta-features of HiPo programs and ‘B’ players' perceptions about these programs. Further, we examine the role of an employee's motivation profile (i.e., achievement motivation and power motivation) in forming his/her attributions about these programs, which then affects his/her commitment and organizational citizenship behaviours. Future research directions and practical implications are presented.     

The impact on the cultural diversity to employees' job satisfaction between mainland China and Taiwan: a comparison of Taiwanese invested companies

This study explores how the Chinese values (Integrations, Confucian Work Dynamism, Human-heartedness and Moral Discipline) impact employees' satisfaction (ES). Employees who work in mainland China for companies whose parent companies are based in Taiwan were surveyed. The results can be summarized as the following: ‘Integration’, ‘Confucian Work Dynamism’ and ‘Human-heartedness’ are significantly different between Taiwanese and Chinese employees, while ‘Moral discipline’ is not; Taiwanese employees have higher ES than Chinese employees; Taiwanese employees view ‘career planning’ is the most important, while Chinese employees think ‘management system’ is most important; For Taiwanese employees, ‘Salary and benefit’, ‘Working load’ and ‘Management system’ have effects on ES; Age and Education have effects on Chinese employees.     

High-involvement practices and performance of French firms

This article deals with the relationship between human resource practices (HRPs) and firm performances in France. It focuses on four specific HRPs that are able to involve employees: empowerment, compensation, communication and training. Each HRP taken in isolation is supposed to be positively related to performances because it is a source of motivation and commitment for employees. But there also exists a synergy between these practices: when they are combined into a bundle and are implemented all together, they should lead to better firm performances. A survey carried out among 180 human resource managers of large French companies leads to validation of most of our hypotheses. Contrary to previous research, we do not find a significant link between compensation and firm performance. The other HRPs are all indirectly related to financial performances, with social performance playing a mediating role. When they are combined into a bundle, HRPs have a stronger impact on performance than when they are studied individually. The article concludes with the importance of developing a strategic human resource policy and of implementing coherent and complementary high-involvement practices to increase firm performance.     

浅谈激励在人力资源管理中的应用——通过内激和外激降低企业员工离职率

激励是人力资源管理中重要的一部分,有效的运用激励手段可以鼓舞员工士气,提高员工工作效率,甚至降低离职率。目前我国企业员工离职率不断增高,形势不容乐观,对此,该篇从激励角度进行探讨,试图通过综合运用内激与外激的激励手段,增加工作的吸引力,提高员工的成就感,适当增加薪酬等,从而使员工在精神和物质上得到激励,最终达到降低离职率的目的。     

企业员工培训评估工作问题的若干思考

员工教育培训,是企业人力资源管理与开发的重要组成部分和关键职能。它是指企业通过教学或实验等方法促使员工的行为方式在知识、技术、品行、道德等方面有所改进或提高,保证员工能够按照预期的标准或水平完成所承担或将要承担的工作与任务。从某种意义上说,它是企业人力资产增值的重要途径,是企业组织效益提高的重要途径。本文对企业培训效果评估的方法进行了探索,提出了对企业员工培训效果评估的方法。     

The impact of Investors in People: a case study of a hospital trust

This article reports on case study research conducted in a hospital trust and explores the impact that the Investors in People award had on employees. Investors in People is widely seen as the principal mechanism for increasing workforce skills within a voluntarist system as well as supporting ‘good’ employment policies. Yet in this case study, as elsewhere, most of the ‘soft’ HR initiatives had existed prior to accreditation and the internal marketing of corporate value statements was met with both amnesia and cynicism. More worrying, training activity was focused on ‘business need’, which was defined in the narrowest sense, with the result that some employees had fewer opportunities for individual development. Motivation and commitment levels were high, staff were enthusiastic about their work and many actively engaged in training and development. But this owed little to Investors in People, and its impact here raises questions about its influence on skill levels more broadly.     

PLANNING FOR PERSONNEL?-HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT RECONSIDERED*

This article provides an in-depth case study of a UK mutual life insurance company with the pseudonym Pensco. The case is presented partly to illustrate some theoretical and empirical weaknesses within the managerialist literatures on human resource management (HRM), and in those academic critiques which perceive it to be all ‘hype’and no substance. Our concern is not with the questin of whether Pensco ‘fits’an HRM model, but with examining changes in management practice, their effects on the nature of management control and the growth of self-discipline throughout the company's hierarchy. Focusing on two management techniques regarding the development of ‘team’spirit among company employees, we see these changes as coinciding with the emergence of a language, if not directly the practice, of HRM which has come to pervade management in this and other contemporary organizations.     

地方高校全国大学英语考试现状及对策

当前,地方院校大学英语考试的现状不容乐观。提高大学生大学英语水平测试能力,有效可行的对策主要有:激发学生学习动机;调节学生成就情绪;改进学生语言学习策略;创新英语教学法;集中培训应试技能。     

Training and development deficiencies in ‘high skill’ sectors

Policy debates across advanced industrial economies are stressing the centrality of skills and training to compete in the new ‘knowledge economy’. In the UK increasing importance is being placed on improving workplace learning, yet policy has so far failed to confront the issue of employers' lack of investment in training and development. This article examines whether the high skill sectors that exist within the UK can provide a model of workplace learning for other such sectors to emulate. By using case study research from the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, training and development practices are examined in relation to the requirements of the business and individual employees. The article will argue that the companies in question, despite their favourable product market position, remain constrained by the broader institutional environment.     

Online business development services for entrepreneurs: an exploratory study

This paper addresses the use of the Internet to provide business development services such as training, consulting, counselling and networking. Using a Delphi study of experts from around the world, the possible uses of the Internet as well as criteria for successful implementation are presented. Three critical success factors for providing online services are identified. First, an effective use of online resources requires that the inherent strengths of the Internet be exploited. Using online tools when they are perceived to be a ‘second-best’ mode of communication is inefficient and can be counterproductive. Second, personal contact is still very important and can complement online services. Third, successful online services require an effective Internet site and program management. The study also shows that the specific nature of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs must be carefully considered when developing online services. The entrepreneur is more concerned about his/her problems and is less concerned with the problems of others. However, he or she is willing to participate in a small learning network if the benefits go beyond that of just learning together. Similarly, online training for entrepreneurs should be complemented by a face-to-face component. An efficient/effective pure online training program for entrepreneurs would be very difficult if not impossible to develop and implement.     

Encouraging employees to co-operate: the effects of sponsored training and promotion practices on employees' willingness to work overtime

The ‘mutual-investment’ model argues that when employers invest more in the social exchange relationship between them and their employees, their employees will show more effort. In this paper we relate the ‘mutual-investment’ model to training and promotion (possibilities) and examine if these kinds of career-enhancing measures influence the willingness of employees within organizations to work overtime. To test this hypothesis, a vignette experiment was conducted in five organizations (N = 388; 1,531 vignettes). Multilevel analyses show that employees are more willing to work overtime when their employer has provided for training, when the employee recently was promoted, when the supervisor was supportive in the past and when co-workers approve of working overtime and behave similarly. But we did not find that future promotion chances affect willingness to work overtime.     

基于人力资源管理的增强员工对组织的信任

增强员工的组织信任对于企业组织来说,是十分重要且必须的。从人力资源管理的各项职能活动入手,具体是从员工的招募、培训到最终雇主品牌的建立等方面,简要分析了怎样增强员工对组织的信任。     

论企业员工的培训与开发——以某集团公司员工的培训与开发工作为例

知识经济的时代,企业人才培养与发展发生激烈变革,人才取代资金和设备,成为企业发展的第一推动力和核心竞争力。文章结合某集团公司的实际,提出了企业员工培训开发的措施。     

Improving the psychosocial environment for older trainees: Technological training as an illustration

Currently, there is a higher proportion of older workers in the labor force and the applicant pool than there have been in previous generations as a result of the Baby Boomer demographic bubble. Regarding these older workers as a potentially valuable resource and developing their skills accordingly may help employers fulfill their labor needs in an increasingly competitive market. Relative to younger workers, there is limited information in the literature with respect to the design of a psychologically and socially supportive training environment for this particular demographic. Our intent in this review is to provide a research-based framework for understanding the specific psychological and social needs of older trainees. We first examine the impact of ageism and age-related stereotype threat in the learning environment, and ways to reduce their negative influence on training. We then turn to a consideration of the motivational needs of the older trainee, and the unique ways to foster positive levels of training motivation and self-efficacy. At each step of our discussion, we use technological training as a specific example of these training challenges and remedies. This training domain was chosen because of its increasing relevance to job acquisition for older applicants and to the career development of mature employees. Practical implications for theories and practice tailored to older learners are emphasized.     

基于质量特性理论的员工激励问题探析

激励问题是一个企业人力资源管理的关键问题,对于企业的生存和发展至关重要。现代企业应以质量特性理论核心思想为基础,重视人力资源的作用,制定既符合企业实际,又能较好地满足员工各具差异而又动态变化的需要,具有效益性,规范性,又具有灵活性的激励制度。     

Task Conflict and Employee Creativity: The Critical Roles of Learning Orientation and Goal Congruence

We add to human resource literature by investigating how the contribution of task conflict to employee creativity depends on employees’ learning orientation and their goal congruence with organizational peers. We postulate a positive relationship between task conflict and employee creativity and predict that this relationship is augmented by learning orientation but attenuated by goal congruence. We also argue that the mitigating effect of goal congruence is more salient among employees who exhibit a low learning orientation. Our results, captured from employees and their supervisors in a large, Mexican‐based organization, confirm these hypotheses. The findings have important implications for human resource managers who seek to foster creativity among employees. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Multinational Retailers in China: Proliferating ‘McJobs’ or Developing Skills?*

abstract Much has been written on the nature of skills and the extent to which there is increased skills development or a deskilling of workers in modern workplaces. This paper broadens the debate and explores these issues in the novel context of UK‐ and Japanese‐
invested retailers' operations in China. Data derived from over two hundred interviews at twelve retail stores in six Chinese cities and questionnaires completed by almost eight hundred employees elicited contextualized accounts of interactive service workers' own perceptions of their training and skills development. It was found that these firms made a substantial contribution to skills development, fostered and enhanced both directly by company training and also through experiential workplace‐based learning. It might be, however, that this constitutes an essential but ‘one‐off’ increase in skills in transitional economies such as that of China.     

企业激励因素分析

企业激励是一个由多种相互作用的因素组成的复杂系统,企业要取得良好的激励效果,需要综合考虑多方面因素。本文构建了包括实施激励的主体、接受激励的客体、激励手段组合、激励力量、激励频度、社会比较、控制和反馈、激励强度及辅助系统等因素在内的激励模型。作者编制和发放了问卷,用主成分法对问卷结果进行因素分析,验证了以上激励模型的有效性;在因素分析的基础又进行回归分析,回归分析结果表明各因素对激励强度的贡献程度由大到小分别为激励手段组合、激励力量、社会比较、辅助子系统和激励频度。总之,为了获得较好的激励效果,不同企业应采取不同的激励方式,同一企业针对不同的员工或同一员工的不同职业发展阶段也应采取不同的激励策略。