2024-01-15 11:09:18
Over the past decades, companies around the world have attempted to boost their ability to innovate by implementing certain human resource management (HRM) practices. Their objective: to develop the skills of employees, increase their motivation and give them opportunities to take part in the collective effort. Training, consultations, financial incentives, the systems take different forms.
A company innovate when it develops and markets a product or service that is new to it or to the market. In a competitive world, this is often synonymous with survival for a company: its very existence can be called into question when it fails to develop its offer while the constraints and aspirations of customers sometimes change quickly.
A company’s ability to innovate depends on a large number of factors including its HR practices. Indeed, a significant part of the decisions that allow the company to imagine new things are taken by the employees themselves. How are they trained? How are they paid? Is their word taken into account or not? So many elements that can indirectly contribute to innovation in the company.
Previous studies report contrasting results. It seems that certain practices are effective in some companies and less so in others. There is therefore no universal law, at first glance, linking a given HRM practice and an innovation. Could it be that the national culture of the company is one of the factors explaining the variability of the effects of HRM practices on innovation across the world? A person in charge of human resources management of a multinational can legitimately ask themselves this question before establishing this or that system.
Financial bonuses, training, discussion… What to use where?
Nos works were conducted on a sample of 304 companies from 13 countries or major regions of the world. Our attention focused on three practices which aim toimprove the skills, motivation or opportunities of employees. The first is cross-functional training, a system allowing employees to acquire skills usually associated in the company with a function other than their own. The second is the establishment of financial incentives to motivate employees to innovate. Finally, we observed what was happening with the implementation of systems to collect the opinions of employees in order to give them opportunities to contribute to the innovation process.
Studying the effectiveness of these three HRM practices on innovation depending on the cultural context obviously involves characterizing the cultures. To do this, we called on the model developed by the Dutch anthropologist Geert Hofstede which makes it possible to describe national cultures on a set of fundamental dimensions. For theoretical reasons, we retained three dimensions in particular: individualism ( once morest collectivism), masculinity ( once morest femininity) and hierarchical distance.
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We considered that the effects of HRM practices on innovation in a given culture can be of two different natures. If the practice is similar in principle to the national culture and has a positive effect on innovation, it is called reinforcement. The practice of HRM in some way exploits the potential of the effect of culture on innovation. If the HRM practice is different in its principle from the national culture and it has a positive effect on innovation, then we speak of compensation. The practice of HRM in some way compensates for something missing in the company culture to encourage innovation.
Exploiting potential and removing obstacles
Our study revealed first of all that cross-functional training promotes innovation more in collectivist cultures, for example those found in South Korea or Vietnam. Emphasizing group harmony and shared objectives indeed seems quite consistent with the objectives of cross-functional training, which aims to encourage employees to go beyond the boundaries of their own role and to take partial ownership of it. ‘others. This is very different in individualistic Swedish or German cultures: cross-functional training there might increase costs and lead to conflicts. In short, cross-functional training reinforces one of the positive characteristics for innovation already present in collectivist cultures.
Regarding the establishment of financial bonuses that would reward innovation, it appears that this practice is more effective in masculine cultures (for example in Japan or Italy) than in feminine cultures (for example in Sweden or Finland). In a culture that intrinsically values success and material success, first case, financial incentives will motivate employees to innovate. This will be less the case in cultures which, secondly, value more the quality of life and the balance between the personal sphere and the professional sphere. A bonus is not particularly motivating there. It therefore appears that financial incentives play a reinforcing role in the relationship between masculinity and innovation.
On the other hand, it is a compensatory role played by systems allowing their collaborators to freely express their ideas and share their perspectives with others in cultures characterized by a strong hierarchical distance (for example in China). In cultures with high power distance, upward communication is almost non-existent. Giving employees a voice in this type of culture allows new ideas and perspectives to emerge that would not otherwise be heard. An obstacle to innovation is thus removed. On the other hand, in cultures with a low hierarchical distance (in Israel for example), employees can already express themselves freely and devices to facilitate speaking therefore do not have much added value.
Ultimately, it seems that practices focusing on skills and motivation tend to reinforce positive cultural characteristics for innovation, whereas practices focusing on the provision of opportunities tend to compensate for shortcomings. Our study underlines in any case the importance of taking into account the cultural context in which an HRM practice is implemented in order to be able to anticipate its effectiveness. For international companies with employees from different cultures in different regions of the world, it seems important to realize that HRM practices that are effective in one location will not necessarily be effective in another.
What to do when you cannot adapt an unsuitable practice? Could organizational culture go once morest national culture to promote innovation? Future research will tell us whether this is a lever that people in charge of human resources management can activate or not.
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