| The purpose of this study was to examine how Human Resource Development (HRD) practices may impact business performance via Continuous Improvement (CI) activities as a whole, and the relationships among them within the context of various levels of employees and different functional areas at one North American Automotive Supplier.;Dimensions of HRD practices -- HRD framework (Garavan, 2007) have been adapted as independent variables, and have been regrouped into four factors: Learning Culture, Training Management, Employee Development, and Competency Enhancement. Sixteen indicators adapted from the Performance Improvement Model (Jorgensen, Boer & Laugen, 2006) have been explored as three dependent variables: Speed/Cost Performance, Relationship Performance, and Organization Performance. In addition, six CI abilities have been examined as mediators from the CI Maturity Model (Bessant & Caffyn, 1997) and two different moderators -- four employee position levels and three functional areas have been defined based on the real practices of the target population.;Data were collected via a web questionnaire using Survey Monkey distributed to the employees of the North American Automotive Supplier with the support of its HR department. Based on the 2nd CI Net survey (2003) in Europe, the questionnaire was modified by two expert panel reviews under North American settings. Collected data were analyzed by using two statistical packages, SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0. Factor analyses and Structural Equation Model (SEM) analyses were conducted in order to answer three research questions: (a) the relationship among three variables -- HRD practices (independent variables), Performance Improvement (Dependent Variables), and CI abilities (mediator), (b) the relationship among three variables under the first moderator -- employee position level, and (c) the relationship among three variables under the second moderator -- functional area. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were conducted to identify a variable factor structure of independent variables, dependent variables, and mediators. SEM analyses were performed to investigate the relationships among three variables in general and the relationships under two different moderators.;The results presented that (a) hypothesized measurement models are valid and reliable in the North American context. (b) to answer the first research question, Structural Model 1 series indicated that HRD practices strongly and positively influenced performance improvement as fully mediated by CI abilities in general, and hypothesis 1 was supported. (c) to answer the second research question, Structural Model 2 series demonstrated that the overall relationship under any employee position level was not supported in general. Only small, positive, and direct support from operational employee to Performance Improvement was found. So, hypothesis 2 was not supported. (e) to answer the third research question, Structural Model 3 series demonstrated the result which was only HR function provided small, negative, and direct support for HRD practices, and other functions had no support on the overall relationship in neither positive nor negative way. And, hypothesis 3 was not supported.;In brief, only the first hypothesis was positively supported and the second and the third ones were not supported in the overall relationship. A conclusive summary is provided along with a contributive discussion. Implications and contributions to HRD academic researchers and CI practitioners are discussed, and recommendations are offered. Also included are conclusive final thoughts accompanied by the limitations of this study. |
