The world of HR likes to keep throwing curve balls.

I was going through some literature on Leadership and realized that HR can play a newer role in the field of leadership development. Traditionally we would have identified and used our skills to identify potential leaders, train these leaders, and retain talent so that we have a good pool of resources. We should also have a look at online coaching or a coach on demand initiative. This will help in a few ways. The potential leader will have the ability to get his/her decisions thought over before being thrown to the sharks, Also the leaders will be more adapted to the organisational culture which in turn will help them be more productive and also influence the employees better.

Coming back to training seems to be a preferred choice among a number of companies. No doubt it is beneficial and helps in acquiring the needed knowledge and attitude; however, training has to be tailored for the organisation. I do not believe that one training program can fits all organisations. But I have noticed that this is being done. Will work but Will not have the desired impact.

New Learning from HRM

I apologize for the lack of commitment in keeping my posts up. HRM in India is actually quite nascent. I am sure that the big IT companies will disagree on the basis that they have a PCMM certification or follow the same best practices as those used elsewhere.

We have forgotten about forward and backward integration of best practices, what is worse is that even though we have a rich culture we are not adapting a number of 'best' practices as per our culture. Leading to dissent within the employees not only about the policy but about human resource management in general.

I had done some research before in the field of absorption capacity. This is exactly the pitfalls of not paying close enough attention to something like an organisations absorption capacity.

Recently, the organisation I work for decided to employ PMS. No doubt it is a good initiative but what is more important is that it is properly implement and designed in such a manner that all employees are motivates. In a number of organisation similar to mine the role of PMS is to conduct a performance appraisal once usually at the end of the financial year and then give people increments no thought has been put in as to what else can be done? is the system fair? and the most basic question which largely remains unanswered is does this improve the performance and motivate my employees?

PRP is a relatively new practice in India, we were more used to the diwali bonus and pay increase as per the boss's will. I admit that a few organisations have been able to implement this practice very well and are exploiting thr benefits. While others followed them blindly and have had to suffer.

Can we all Innovate?

Cohen, W., and Levinthal, D., (1990) defined Absorption Capacity (ACAP) as the ability of a firm to recognise the value of new external information, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends. This ability of firm acts as an intangible asset for the organisation (Cohen, W., and Levinthal, D., 1990). the development of ACAP can not only help organisation stimulate organisational growth but also adapt to the various situations (Zahra, S., and George, G., 2002). ACAP may be developed through HRM activities (Minbaeva, D., Pedersen, T., Bjorkman, I., Fey, F.C., and Park, J.H., 2003).

Cohen, W., and Levinthal, D., (1990) defined ACAP as the ability of a firm to recognise the value of new external information, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends. They argued that ACAP was an intangible asset to the organisation and its development was through research and development activities, external communication and internal communication.

A second definition of ACAP was proposed by Mowery, D., and Oxely, J.E., (1995). They suggested that ACAP was a broad set of skills that were needed to deal with the tacit component of transferred knowledge and the need to modify this imported knowledge.

A third definition of ACAP comes from the work of Kim, L., (1997a, b, 1998). Kim, L., (1997a, b, 1998) defined ACAP as the capacity of an organisation to learn and solve problems. Kim, L., (1998) proposed that ACAP is required to assimilate knowledge for imitation and develop problem solving skills to create new knowledge, i.e. innovation.

Zahra, S., and George, G., (2002) reconceptualised the previous work on ACAP. They defined ACAP as a set of organisational routines and processes by which firms acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit knowledge to produce a dynamic organisational capability.

The four components of ACAP, namely acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation, play different but complementary roles. Furthermore, these four dimensions of ACAP are influenced by different factors (Zahra, S., and George, G., 2002). Therefore, it is essential that each of these components and the influences on these components is studied.

Acquisition refers to a firms’ capability to identify and acquire externally generated knowledge that is critical to its operations. The acquisition component of ACAP is influenced by prior investments, prior knowledge and also intensity, speed and direction of accumulating knowledge (Zahra, S., and George, G., 2002). Therefore, it can be inferred that the investment that organisations make in developing their knowledge sources, through various practices, will have an influence on ACAP.

The second component of ACAP is assimilation. Assimilation refers to the firms’ routines and processes that allow it to analyse, process, interpret and understand the information obtained from external sources (Kim, L., 1997a, b, Szulanski, G., 1996). The organisations understanding of external information has the greatest influence on assimilation (Zahra, S., and George, G., 2002). Therefore, the practices that organisations have understanding external information will have an influence on ACAP.

Transformation is the third component of ACAP. Transformation denoted a firms’ capability to develop and refine the routines that facilitate combining existing knowledge and the newly acquired knowledge. This is achieved by adding or deleting knowledge or by interpreting the same knowledge in a different manner (Zahra, S., and George, G., 2002). Based on this argument it can be proposed that the ‘best-fit’ approach towards organisational routines and processes will help increase ACAP.

The final component of ACAP is exploitation. This is an organisational capability that is based on the routines that allow firms to refine, extend and leverage existing competencies or to create new ones by incorporating acquired and transformed knowledge into its operations. The presence of such routines provided structural, systemic and procedural mechanisms that allow firms to sustain the exploitation of knowledge over extended periods of times.

Therefore, it can be inferred that the organisational practices that are focused on imparting knowledge to employees have an influence on the organisations ACAP. These practices will enable an organisation to develop the competencies of its employees and also help an organisation to acquire and exploit external knowledge quickly.