Knowledge-oriented human resource configurations, the new product development learning process, and perceived new product performance

Abstract

We propose a set of organizational efforts that can help companies accumulate and learn knowledge related to new product development (NPD) activities. We call it the NPD learning process and argue that a set of coherent human resource management (HRM) practices, termed knowledge-oriented human resource (HR) configuration, can facilitate the NPD learning process. Collecting survey data from Taiwan, we find that the knowledge-oriented HR configuration is positively related to the NPD learning process and that the NPD learning process is positively related to managers' perceived new product performance. This study contributes to the literature of strategic HRM and innovation management.

Keywords:

• human resource configuration
• new product performance
• organization learning

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Jason Shaw for helpful comments on earlier versions. His contributions helped enormously in improving this article. This research is funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan, No. 95-2416-H-130-003.