The relationship between flexible human resource management and enterprise innovation performance: A study from organizational learning capability perspective

Abstract

Currently the enterprises are facing complex external environment. This paper aims to identify relationships among flexible human resource management, organizational learning capability and innovation performance. The qualitative research through surveys from 250 companies is designed based on organizational learning and flexible human resource management theory. The findings reveal that: 1) functional flexibility and behavior flexibility have significant positive effects on organizational learning capability; 2) extended skill flexibility is not conducive to the improvement of organizational learning capability. Therefore enterprise can use functional flexibility strategy, extended skill flexibility strategy and behavior flexibility strategy to improve enterprise innovation performance. Organisational learning capabilities, on the other hand, act as an intermediate between flexible human resource management and organizational innovation performance. From practical point of view, the research findings provide guidance for practitioners to improve human resource management and enterprise innovation levels.