Creating Sustainable High-Performance Human Resource Practice through Employees Learning Agility. The Transition Adaptive Approach

Abstract

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic posed enormous challenges, compelling organizations to adapt to unforeseen events as a result of direct immediate threats and consequently pushing human resource practitioners to reshape their existing human resources practices. It appears, there is no study so far which has investigated the relationship between employee learning agility (ELA) and high-performance human resources practice (HPHRP) particularly, the mediating effect of the person-organization fit (P-O fit) in reshaping human resource practices through transition adaptive theory.  A self-administered survey among public sector employees in the Fiji Islands yielded a sample of 351 participants. The proposed model was analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM), to determine the model fit. The findings show that ELA significantly enhances HPHRP. This suggests that learning opportunity provides an opportunity to adopt, modify, and recombine, the current knowledge with new knowledge in creating new knowledge stock. The diffusion of such knowledge can assist significantly in improving human resource practices. Moreover, the mediating effect of P-O fit shows the congruence between ELA and organization, further suggesting that employees perform best in an environment that supports their salient needs and recognizes their knowledge, abilities, and skills in reshaping human resources practices. As such, this study provides a significant contribution to the extant literature on human resource management. Finally, the current research offers theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and further research directions.