According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

Organizational learning II: Theory, method and practice

This paper presents a framework for studying the concepts of fit and flexibility in the field of Strategic Human Resource Management (Strategic HRM) focusing on HRM practices, employee skills, and employee behaviors and reviews past conceptual and empirical work within that framework. A model of Strategic HRM is presented and this model is used to explore the concepts of fit and flexibility as they apply to Strategic HRM. The concepts of resource and coordination flexibility are applied to Strategic HRM, and the implications of the framework for both the practice of and research on Strategic HRM are discussed.

Toward a Unifying Framework for Exploring Fit and Flexibility in Strategic Human Resource Management

– This paper aims to clarify the relationship between human resource practices and staff retention by selecting three high performance work practices (precursors) and one outcome variable (turnover intentions), and trying to demonstrate the mediator role of employee commitment and job satisfaction in this relationship., – The proposed model has been analyzed with a sample of 198 employees and a structural equation modeling methodology., – Salary strategies and job enrichment strategies were positively related to job satisfaction. Job enrichment strategies and job stability strategies were positively related to employee commitment. Employee commitment was negatively related to turnover intentions. The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions was mediated by employee commitment, – One limitation of the findings is the use of self‐report questionnaires to collect data on all measures. Another potential limitation concerns the measurement of some latent factors with only two observable variables., – Turnover continues to be a serious problem for businesses. The proposed model suggests the use of specific practices that develop satisfaction and commitment as an intermediate step to low turnover intentions., – A sample of 198 workers was used as the source of information. This information offers clear advantages over the more widely used samples from managerial directors or statistical data gathered in human resource practices, as in this case. The perceptions of those people on whom these measures are directly carried out are readily accessible.

A model of high performance work practices and turnover intentions

Recently, a number of studies have tried to examine the processes that explain the influence of high performance work systems (HPWS) on company performance, in an attempt to understand which variables mediate this relationship and to what extent they do so. The importance of the organizational learning capability (OLC) construct has traditionally been outlined as being essential for a company’s survival and effective performance. Thus, it seems important to establish whether HPWS can be considered an antecedent of OLC, and consequently to confirm whether OLC acts as a mediating variable in the HPWS–company performance linkage. Bearing in mind that HPWS represent a ‘bundle’ of mutually reinforcing, overlapping and synergistic individual human resource practices, this positive connection between HPWS and OLC seems reasonable. We tested our hypotheses by applying a structural equation methodology to a sample of 163 Spanish companies. Our findings show that the effects of HPWS on organizational performance are mediated by OLC.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/bjom714.pdf?abstractid=2004812&mirid=5

A Matter of Learning: How Human Resources Affect Organizational Performance

Organizational learning capability (OLC) and employee flexibility help firms navigate the challenges faced by organizations operating in turbulent environments. OLC includes dimensions such as experimentation, risk taking, openness, dialogue, and participative decision making. Employee flexibility is considered a crucial tool for strategic human resource management in tackling environmental turbulence. Accordingly, we pose the following research question: how, and to what extent, is individual performance enhanced by OLC and employee flexibility in turbulent environments? The major impact that environmental turbulence has on change and flexibility requirements suggests that employee flexibility plays an important role in the impact OLC has on individual performance. However, we found no prior studies that explicitly analyzed this mediating function of employee flexibility. In this study, we tested three hypotheses that link OLC and individual performance, OLC and employee flexibility, and employee flexibility and individual performance. We applied a structural equation methodology, using partial least squares path modeling, to a sample of 174 academics at a Latin American university (a highly turbulent context). Our results show employee flexibility fully mediates the relation between OLC and individual performance given the presence of environmental turbulence.

Individual Performance in Turbulent Environments: The Role of Organizational Learning Capability and Employee Flexibility

Purpose – Numerous empirical works have found evidence to support a positive relationship between managers' transformational leadership behaviour and employees' individual performance. Studies have also begun to examine the process by which the effects on performance ultimately take place. This research aims to move forward in this direction. The paper aims to analyse the mediating role of a contextual variable (organizational learning capability) and a subordinate characteristic (employability) in the relationship between transformational leadership and individual performance.Design/methodology/approach – The hypothesis was tested through a sample of 795 workers from 75 university departments, using a multilevel path analysis with a two‐level data structure.Findings – Empirical evidence was found to show that: there is a positive relationship between worker‐perceived organizational learning capability in a firm and his/her own employability perception; the worker‐perceived transformational leadership of ...

Transformational leadership, learning, and employability: Effects on performance among faculty members

During the past two decades the chain of three links organizational strategy – human resources practices – organizational performance has been deeply analysed. However, the mediator role of organizational structure in the first link of this chain remains relatively uninvestigated. In this article we analyse a model of relationships among organizational strategy, organizational structure, human resources practices, and organizational performance. Through a structural equation methodology applied to a sample of 183 Spanish companies, we will try to confirm that organizations with differentiation strategies are more likely to implement high involvement work practices. As a novelty we will introduce organizational structure as a mediator of this relationship. For that we will use the construct control mechanisms (centralization, formalization and socialization). Further, we will analyse the effect on firm performance of these proposed relationships among differentiation strategy, control mechanisms and high i...

Joaquín Camps

Papers

A model of high performance work practices and turnover intentions

A Matter of Learning: How Human Resources Affect Organizational Performance

Individual Performance in Turbulent Environments: The Role of Organizational Learning Capability and Employee Flexibility

Transformational leadership, learning, and employability: Effects on performance among faculty members

High involvement work practices and firm performance