Knowledge Strategies, Firm Types, and Complementarity in Human-Resource Practices

Keld Laursen () and Volker Mahnke ()

Journal of Management & Governance, 2001, vol. 5, issue 1, 27 pages

Abstract: This paper argues that complementary humanresource practices play an important role inthe development of a knowledge based theory offirm. In general, such a theory might beadvanced through investigating complementarycoordination mechanisms as components ofgovernance structures. In particular, humanresource practice combinations contribute ascoordination mechanisms to organise knowledgecreation and exploitation in complex socialrelations. Yet, little is known about why and howinnovation strategies and activity systems ofdifferent firm types relate to combinations ofhuman resource practices. We address this gapby investigating the impact of firm types andknowledge strategies pursued on the applicationof human resource practices in a multisectoralsample of 684 manufacturing and 1,200non-manufacturing firms. We find that theadoption of practices applied differ with thecharacteristics of knowledge strategies andwith firm types. In addition, after controllingfor these differences, we find thatcomplementarity effects among practices arepresent in varying degrees. The implications ofour findings include that there are fewerrestrictions to combinations of coordinationmechanisms than widely assumed. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Keywords: complementarities; human resource practices; innovation; knowledge coordination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

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DOI: 10.1023/A:1017985623502

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