Влияние HR-практик и брендинга работодателя на инновационную результативность фирмы

Today we live in a rapidly evolving world. The past couple of decades have seen the introduction of major innovations, such as the Internet and personal computers (Tellis et al., 2009), which have significantly changed existing markets. Modern technology is bringing all economies together in a single ecosystem, where companies are empowered to compete throughout the new global world. Globalization brings with it a high level of competition for both local and global customers (Farniha et al., 2016). In such an environment, it becomes much more difficult to maintain one’s sustainable position than before. It is not enough to degrade, it is necessary to move forward together with the entire market, and if an organization wants to gain an advantage, it must move even faster.
The modern economy is characterized by highly dynamic processes and increased product competitiveness. In this environment, companies need to constantly come up with something new to maintain and improve their position in the market. This process has accelerated significantly since the middle of the last century and is unstoppable. Rapidly acquiring innovations across all industries is a result of the accelerated engine of progress, which produces more and more novelties in products, services, and solutions that improve the aggregate standard of living of people today. Innovation is thus beginning to play a critical role in the global economy (Baskara & Mehta, 2016).
Today, innovation allows companies to remain competitive, improve their own performance (Diaz-Fernandes et al., 2017), and meet consumer needs by synchronizing the opportunities offered by the market with the strengths of the organization, as well as taking the initiative in a strategic perspective (Rujirawanich et al., 2011). The value of innovation is only increasing because of rapidly changing consumer preferences as well as the ubiquitously unpredictable nature of markets (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997). In this environment, companies have to actively develop new products and solutions, as well as develop strategies to attract new customers and satisfy old ones (Ungerman et al., 2018).
With such a high importance of innovation for well-being and success in today’s economy, organizations have a great need for quality tools to manage innovation. Previously researches were trying to address the demand by exploring the opportunities to enhance innovation by restructuring it as a process (Benner & Tushman, 2003; Ottosson, 2019, Bican & Brem, 2020), changing decision making (Lopez-Fernandez et al., 2016; Bierly et al., 2014) and revising the management system (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2010; Brix, 2012; Lanker et al., 2016) Since the need for innovation did not arise today, most organizations have already been able to master some basic management practices,
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but to gain a competitive advantage it is necessary to look for new and unconventional solutions. This is the gap current study is trying to address. The idea behind is that the basis of any innovation is human capital. It is people who are looking for, inventing, creating something new. Therefore, this study focused on the question of how organizations can influence the innovative performance with the help of tools that primarily influence people. These tools were practices of Strategic Human Resource management and Employer Brand.
The term “Human Resources” can be defined as a strategic and logical approach to managing an organization’s most valuable asset: the people working there, who collectively and individually contribute to the organization’s objectives. Personnel management practices are a very powerful tool for influencing a firm’s various metrics through the current and future composition of personnel and their qualities. HR practices applied through the lens of company strategy have an even greater role in influencing the bottom line, as they work in close collaboration with other departments to achieve overall organizational goals, changing organizational structures and employee qualities to meet current needs. Therefore, as part of the evaluation of the impact of practices aimed at people in the company to increase innovation, it was impossible not to consider Strategic Human Resource management.
The term “Employer Brand” is mainly perceived as an overall organization image that can be weak, neutral or strong as a “great place to work”. It usually refers to the impressions of current employees on the internal side and key external stakeholders on the external side, such as active and passive candidates, clients, customers, and other key stakeholders. This study focuses on the internal direction of Employer Brand which goal is to create the necessary conditions for employees to feel comfortable and be able to fully devote themselves to their work. Employer Brand practices allow to improve employee engagement, motivation, and retention rates.
In past literature, the Employer Brand has received little attention in managing organizational performance, and particularly innovation, despite the fact that the Employer Brand has great potential in influencing employee behavior. Previously most researchers focused only the correlation between implementing employer branding principles and human resource management. (Sokro, E., 2012; Davies, G., 2008; Wilden, R., 2010) or only theoretical aspect of the interaction of the employer’s brand and innovation (Martin G. et al., 2011). Only recent work has begun to focus on the potential of the Employer Brand as a determinant of organizational innovation success, but even that work has not examined the effect on ultimate innovation firm performance. This is the research gap in literature current research is trying to address. Moreover, this paper introduces a new idea of considering the
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Employer Brand as a factor that creates favorable conditions for enhancing the effect of applied Strategic HR practices on innovative firm performance. Thus, Employer Brand acquires moderation effect.
Based on the above, the research goal of this study is to reveal the role of Employer Branding and Strategic HR practices in determining the Innovative Firm Performance. For the purpose of achieving the research goal the following tasks were made:
1. Existing literature on innovation, employer brand, and Strategic HR practices was reviewed in detail.
2. Based on the deep study of the literature the main hypotheses of the research were formed:
H1: Strategic HR practices positively relate to innovative performance of a firm.
H2: Employer Brand positively relates to innovative performance of a firm.
H3: Employer brand moderates the relationship between Strategic HR practices and innovative
performance of a firm.
3. A questionnaire was formed based on adapted blocks of questions from previous research,
which confirmed their over-time validity.
4. To achieve a correct understanding of the items by the respondents, a pilot study was held
on 10 participants with the requirement of detailed feedback on the comprehensibility of
the questionnaire, as well as a short conversation on the question that raised doubts.
5. After final improvement of the questionnaire based on pilot feedback, the main study was
conducted on representatives of 35 Russian companies of large businesses.
6. The responses were cleaned of all kinds of errors and biases and analyzed in detail
7. On the basis of the work done, conclusions were made with details on the limitations of
the survey and recommendations for future research
All the following steps were held to answer the main research questions:
• How Strategic HR practices affects Innovative Firm Performance?
• How Employer Brand affects Innovative Firm Performance?
• Does the Employer Brand of a company strengthen the influence of Strategic HR practices
on Innovative Firm Performance?
The results of the research provided support for the hypotheses that Employer Brand (Training
and Staffing) and Strategic Human Resource (Career Development, Financial Rewards, Job Content and Social Atmosphere) practices have a significant impact on Innovative Firm Performance.
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However, the hypothesis of moderation effect of Employer Brand was not confirmed, which can be explained by research limitations.
This research makes a significant contribution to the existing literature because previously the Employer Brand was considered as a factor influencing company innovation only in a few recent papers, and even they did not assess the ultimate innovation performance of a firm. Despite the unsupported hypothesis of the Employer Brand moderation role, this study provides a notable theoretical rationale for this relationship, which opens up new opportunities for future research. Also, the work offers additional evidence on the sustainability of Strategic HR practices as a tool for managing firm innovation.
The results of the study also have great potential for application in practice. Managers should take into account the Employer Brand practices used, if they want to improve the competitive position of their companies. Also, the research provides extensive recommendations for all practices encountered to improve in order to achieve better innovation results based on current marketing reports and innovations in the areas of Employer Branding and Strategic Human Resource Management.
The next parts of the paper are structured as follows. In the Literature Review there is an extensive review of the current literature on innovation with the disclosure of the term, errors in its definition and factors of influence. In the Theoretical background and hypothesis development there is a review and disclosure of the main factors of influence on Innovative Firm Performance, as well as justification of the formulated hypotheses. In the Research Design part, the details of the process of preparing and conducting the main study are disclosed, and the main analysis takes place in the Data Analysis part. Summary summarizes the main results of the analysis, which are then disclosed in the Discussions part, where the limitations of the work, theoretical and practical implications, as well as the opportunities that the paper offers for future research are reviewed