Influence Of High-performance Work Systems On Open Innovation

Innovation is the only competitive advantage for sustainable development of enterprises,which has caused discussion and attention from all walks of life.Nowadays,the global manufacturing industry has entered the era of Industry 4.0 and is facing the need for upgrading and transformation.China's manufacturing enterprises still have a large gap with the world's advanced level in terms of independent innovation and informatization,and are in a critical period of transition from "Made in China" to "Created in China".Scholars have found that obtaining innovative knowledge and information from external resources is an important driving force for innovation performance.This open innovation method can bring more benefits to the development of enterprises,such as reducing costs,accelerating product listing,and increasing market differentiation and so on.However,searching and learning external knowledge is a task that depends on employees of various organizations.Enterprises reasonably implement advanced and perfect human resource management practices,that is,high-performance work system(HPWS),which can manage and enhance the motivation,ability,and opportunities of knowledge employees to participate in external knowledge search.In addition,the enterprise's information technology(IT)provides a way for employees to communicate with the outside world and transfer and store knowledge.And IT-capable companies can rationally allocate IT resources to enable them to exert synergy with human resource strategies.From the perspective of knowledge management,this study aims to explore the impact of high-performance work systems on open innovation and the moderating effect of IT capabilities on the relationship between high-performance work systems and open innovation.This study conducted a questionnaire survey on manufacturing enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta Industrial Park in China,and obtained 108 valid questionnaires.The result of empirical analysis shows that the high-performance work system has a positive impact on open innovation.IT exploration capabilities enhance the relationship between high-performance work systems and open innovation,but IT exploitation capability weakens the relationship between the two,and the impact of IT ambidexterity is not significant.Based on the results,the following suggestions are proposed for enterprise management.Companies should use high-performance work systems to enhance employees' motivation for external learning,knowledge management capabilities,and opportunities for participating in open innovation.They should recognize the role of IT exploration capabilities in promoting employee learning and seeking open innovation,and carefully develop IT exploitation capabilities and IT ambidexterity in the process of external knowledge search.These two IT capabilities may not achieve the purpose of improving the impact of high-performance work systems on open innovation.This study suggests that when considering the impact of human resource management in the open innovation process,a sound and advanced human resource management practice,that is,a high-performance work system,should be considered.This research is of great significance to high-performance work systems,IT capabilities and open innovation,and makes up for the neglect of human resource management when considering the dependent variables of open innovation,and the strategic consistency of high-performance work systems and IT capabilities.This research also extends the ambidexterity to the study of human resource management and open innovation.