Approaches to HRD in Russian IT-companies in the period of economic crisis

ABSTRACT

Economic crisis differently impacts on the decisions of companies how to manage human resource development (HRD) initiatives. For the IT sector, intellectual capital becomes a core source of sustainable competitive advantages where HRD is seen like a tool to develop the internal stock of human capital. This article explores the approaches to HRD used by Russian IT-companies during the crisis. On the basis of the conceptual debates regarding the necessity to invest more in HRD programs even in the crisis conditions and our own empirical research, we tried to find out what happened with HRD costs during the crisis and what was the relationship between HRD costs and company’s performance during the crisis in Russian IT-companies. We conclude that Russian IT-companies perceive the value of HRD programs; hence, the most innovative-active and fast developing IT-companies prefer to constantly invest more in HRD initiatives. In crisis conditions, we recommend them to develop and implement more internal training programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Human resource development (HRD) practices
• national crisis
• HRD costs
• IT-companies
• Russia

Acknowledgements

The authors are much grateful to the Center for Sociological and Internet Research at Saint Petersburg State University and its Director Svetlana Snopova for their technical assistance with the data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.