Transformational leadership is a concept initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer Burns (1978). In his opinion, transformational leaders are able to inspire and motivate their subordinates to change expectations, percep- tions and actions. However, according to Bass (1985), transformational leadership is treated based on the impact that it determines on employees or in terms of the leaders’effect on followers. Employees arrive to feel trust, admiration, loyalty and respect toward the leader and they are motivated to do more than they originally expected to do (Yukl1998). In Yukl’s opinion, transformational leaders transform
and motivate their subordinates by supporting them to understand the importance of change. There is a synergic relation between managers and followers within change’s process. Avolio and Bass (2002) argue that employees’attitudes towards organizational change are deeply related to transformational leadership behavior.
Therefore we could sustain that, by inspiring the followers and by creating a vision, managers are able to motivate their subordinates to change. In order to motivate employees, managers should communicate them their values, vision and personal actions (Fry2003). Transformational leadership behavior with components such as:
inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and idealized influence (Bass 1985) might help employees to exceed their fear concerning change. In this respect, transactional leaders are supposed to be real models for their followers inspiring them to challenge their own values and principles (Hater and Bass1988). We consider that transformational leaders treat individually their subordinates in order to implement change. All the arguments prove that transformational leaders act at employees’emotional level for conquer- ing their resistance to change.
4 The Conceptual Model and Research Discussion
We consider very appropriate to build conceptual models for managing employees’ resistance to change in order to help superiors in change’s implementation process.
By researching such a topic, we found out that many corporate change programs failed because of employees’resistance (Maurer1997). The conceptual model that we are proposing intends to guide managers in building a strategy for approaching employees’resistance when implementing change.
In our model, as presented in Figs.1and2, employees’emotions are key factors on which effective managers could have a great impact during change’s implemen- tation. Managers are supposed to play a vital role in transforming emotions like fear, anger and anxiety about real or imaged consequences into positive emotions helping them in conquering employees’resistance. In the center of our conceptual model lies the change that causes different attitudes from managers and employees.
In the same time, leaders and subordinates have their own impact on change. On the other hand, between managers in general and transformational leaders in our case and their subordinates, there are a series of bilateral relationships so that they stimulate and reinforce each other, leading to a synergy effect with direct influences on change. In order to conquer employees’resistance to change, leaders have the possibility to play on their followers’emotions, by inspiring them with a progres- sive vision determining trust, admiration, loyalty, respect and commitment from their part. In such circumstances, employees are motivated to change. Seen as a whole, our conceptual model for managing employees’ resistance to change is based on three hypotheses demonstrated during this paper.
Changes cause insecurity sensations and negative emotions for employees.
Therefore, transformational leadership should become a motivational and
stimulating factor creating a vision and an atmosphere of psychological safety for their subordinates. The latters will arrive to exceed their initial negative expecta- tions concerning change. Employees will become active participants to change’s process conquering their resistance. Our findings confirm previous researches that identified a series of managerial actions and behaviors to convincing employees to reduce their resistance. Furthermore, leaders are likely to develop change tech- niques and their actions in order to manage employees’resistance to change.
Change
Subordinates
ACTIONS
Transformational Leadership Fig. 1 The conceptual
model for managing employees’resistance to change
•Communication
•Consideration
•Stimulation
•Motivation
Trust Admiration
Respect Loyalty
Fig. 2 Managers’actions and employees’feelings MATRIX
5 Conclusions
The current changes and uncertainties in the global economic environment force the organizations all around the world to adapt to those circumstances. Changes determine negative feelings and therefore we consider that managers from all levels become a crucial vector for implementing change within the organizations. The purpose of this paper is to point out the urgency of reducing employees’resistance to change. Our findings show that acceptance or resistance to change often depends on some behavioral issues and managers will be able to lead a change’s process only after an initial well understanding of employees’reasons for different reac- tions towards change. Managers should know that employees’ resistance will always be a complex phenomenon. Therefore, it is important for them to deeply know their subordinates reasons in order to manage effectively change’s imple- mentation process. We began our research from this idea and by the means of three hypotheses we demonstrated the vital role of managers in conquering employees’ resistance to change. We consider that managers could influence employees’ attitudes towards change by interfering in their emotions. Moreover, managers should search for alternative methods to determine employees to adapt change.
By focusing on change as teaching employees new ways of taking risks, managers would arrive to value change rather than determine fear, anxiety or anger among them. Meanwhile, employees are supposed to be given the possibility to be an active part within change’s process. The change effort is dependent of managers’ ability to influence the individual behaviors of their subordinates treated individu- ally. From this perspective, employees feel consideration from their superiors and they are stimulated to participate to change’s process. As a solution for the urgency of adapting change, we consider transformational leadership that is sees as a key and motivational factor for reducing employees’resistance.
During their researches, authors treated the problem of resistance as conviction, opinion and psychological reaction, and even as personality trait. Each interpreta- tion is based on different assumptions and theoretical explanations. However, our research study intends to help explain empirical findings related to resistance and change management strategies. This work gave us the opportunity to conclude that nowadays, change should inspire managers to think and to act differently, to challenge long-standing assumptions, to build new strategies for companies’future success. As companies are currently facing structural and organizational changes, new approaches in human capital management and in understanding the complex issue concerning employees’resistance are required to help companies know and implement change. In future research it would be interesting to develop resistance to change framework as a dynamic model. It would be also used to compare resistance’s interpretations in various contexts of change’s process.
Acknowledgment This work was co-financed from the European Social Fund through Sectorial Operational Program Human Resources Development 2007–2013, project number POSDRU/159/
1.5/S/142115 “Performance and excellence in doctoral and postdoctoral research in Romanian economics science domain”.
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HR Practices with Knowledge Management Outcomes
Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, Jorge F.S. Gomes, and Heidi Olander
Abstract HRM practices can be designed to influence not only employees’crea- tivity, but also an organization’s innovation capabilities and the management of related activities in general. Accordingly, a knowledge management question that ought to be constantly asked is the balance that organizations need to find between the two opposing goals of innovation activities: sharing knowledge between the players involved in innovation on one hand, and preventing vital knowledge from leaking and leaving the same activities on the other hand. This study addresses the questions of how different HRM practices relate to the incidences of both knowl- edge sharing, and knowledge leaking and leaving. Our findings indicate that different HRM practices lead to different outcomes, which thereby indicates that traditional and process approaches both carry out quite different functions.
Keywords HRM process approach • HRM content approach • Knowledge protection • Knowledge sharing • Innovation
1 Introduction
In recent literature, the process approach of Human Resource Management (Sanders et al.2014) has highlighted the process by which organizational messages are communicated to employees and supervisors, as opposed to the more traditional content approach, which is typically used in high-commitment HR practices. Both
P. Hurmelinna-Laukkanen (*)
Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail:pia.hurmelinna-laukkanen@oulu.fi
J.F.S. Gomes
ISEG—Lisbon School of Economics and Management, ULisboa, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail:jorgegomes@iseg.ulisboa.pt
H. Olander
School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland
e-mail:heidi.olander@lut.fi
©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
M.H. Bilgin, H. Danis (eds.),Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics - Vol. 1, Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics 3/1,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27570-3_15
165
approaches are central to Strategic HRM (SHRM), which explores how HRM is connected with organizational strategies, and what are the outcomes of implementing these strategies (Huselid 1995). However, it is not always clear whether it is a case of different approaches leading to different outcomes, or whether similar results are achieved through different means. For example, the control and commitment approaches to HRM suggest that human resources can be guided in different manners (Arthur1994), and hence the purpose of each different HR approach may well play a role. Such a purpose could be to accomplish certain tasks and outcomes, whereby creativity and intrinsic motivation may be needed, amongst other factors, whilst for some other tasks, the use of routines and structures may be more relevant.
With regards to innovation activities, whilst innovativeness, as such, can hardly be forced upon employees (it rather originates from voluntary knowledge sharing and other similar factors), some aspects related to the commercialization and securing the appropriation of innovation may require specific structures and a stricter approach (Brattstr€om et al. 2012). Although open forms of innovation have increased and have revealed their benefits, firms need to prepare against the imitation and misappropriation of their innovative assets, in order to secure possi- bilities for further development (Alexy et al.2012). Recently, Kultti et al. (2015) predicted that the maximum incentives to exchange information in R&D companies are especially strong in vertically related industries.
In fact, one particular problem that is referred to in the SHRM literature has been the connection between HRM and innovation strategies (Guest2011). This topic has stimulated research since Miles and Snow (1978) first elaborated their theories about the connections between innovation strategies and the HRM function. How- ever, despite intense investigation over the following decades, there is still much that is yet to be understood. This is currently known as the‘black box’of HRM research (Ferris et al.1998; Gomes and Sanders2012), based on the fact that only relatively unknown mechanisms explain how organizational strategies impact performance through the HRM system. The literature has addressed this problem, and has provided some preliminary answers. However, some aspects have gone quite unheeded, or the emphases inferred have produced somewhat biased and/or incomplete views on the matter. Prior research has suggested that the HRM system is related to both the financial and innovation performance of the firm, and that innovation appropriation possibilities—that is, appropriability based on knowledge protection—plays a role in this (Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Gomes 2012). This line of research is quite rare however. Even if the need for both knowledge sharing and protection was acknowledged, how to achieve these seemingly contradicting goals is another issue, which is yet to be resolved (Kale et al. 2000; Yang et al.2014). This study aims to address these questions.
In this study, the relationships between HRM practices and processes and their outcomes for knowledge transfer and flows are investigated. This research analyses the problem of how HRM practices and processes that are potentially contradictory, interact with knowledge sharing and knowledge protection activities. The research question is: “how do different HRM practices relate to knowledge sharing on one
hand, and knowledge leaking and leaving tendencies as challenges to knowledge protection, on the other hand?”
In the following sections, firstly knowledge sharing and protection is discussed, as is how HRM practices and processes contribute to these activities. Hypotheses are developed and tested among 150 technology industry firms. Discussion of the findings, theoretical contributions and managerial implications conclude the study.
2 Innovation Within Firms: Varying Knowledge Transfer Outcomes
Although the keys to successful innovation have yet to be determined, it can be noted that creativity and knowledge exchange can be built upon as sources for new ideas (Laursen and Salter2014; Bassett-Jones2005). Moreover, Saha and Banerjee (2015) showed that firm performance is higher in strategic alliances in which information sharing is also higher in the overall network social capital. But Knowl- edge sharing does not come automatically however, and it may well be that different (more or less innate) incentives need to be present. For this, the HRM system is important (i.e., the practices, procedures, and activities that are employed to manage people, together with the skills pool). The HRM system is also relevant in terms of guiding and supporting those employees who generate ideas and evaluate them, and who act as boundary spanners, gatekeepers and receptors of knowledge, and, furthermore, it plays a role in promoting organizational learning (Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Puumalainen2007). Through these activities, HRM system can improve value creation efficiency (Kwon et al.2010). The HRM system stretches beyond the boundaries of the firm, as many events occur, not only within firms, but also across different organizational and disciplinary boundaries.
However the HRM system cannot solely focus on knowledge sharing aspects.
The increasingly frequent open and collaborative forms of innovation (West et al.2014) are not without risk, and knowledge may well flow outside organiza- tional borders in an uncontrollable and unwanted way (Ritala et al.2015). In fact, a firm’s bargaining power and superior performance is jeopardized if a competitive rival manages to appropriate the firm’s proprietary knowledge (Heiman and Nickerson2004; Kogut and Zander 1992). Mills and Smith (2011, p. 161) note that “the knowledge protection process should not be abandoned or marginalized”, compared to knowledge sharing (see also Gold et al. 2001). Referring to inter- organizational learning in the case of collaborations, Yang et al. (2014) note that attempts by firms to enhance knowledge exchange may also assist opportunistic partners capture the proprietary knowledge of the firm (Kale et al.2000; Mohr and Sengupta2002; Li et al.2008). However, undesirable knowledge flows may take place more widely than in the case of organizations which are linked together through collaboration, and therefore protective actions cannot be limited just to relational mechanisms, or to governing the conduct of partners. Reliance on mutual