Handbook of Management Scales/Resource flexibility in HR practices

Resource flexibility in HR practices (alpha = 0.75 ... 0.83)

Description

Based on a thorough scale development and validation process, the authors present a multidimensional measure of the HR flexibility construct. It includes five dimensions: resource flexibility in HR practices, resource flexibility in employee skills and behaviors, coordination flexibility in HR practices, coordination flexibility in contingent worker skills and behaviors, and coordination flexibility in employee skills and behaviors.

Definition

HR flexibility has been conceptualized by Wright and Snell (1998) as a firm-level capability consisting of (1) people who possess a variety of skills and behavioral repertoires and (2) the HR practices that can be used to effectively utilize those people to be responsive to changes in market demands, be adaptive, and be successful in a dynamic environment.

The resource flexibility in HR practices dimension is defined as "the extent to which they can be adapted and applied across a variety of situations" (Wright and Snell, 1998). Hereby, "situations" are conceptualized as "a variety of employees performing a variety of work activities (tasks, roles, jobs, etc.)" (Way et al., 2015).

Items

• Your firm’s current compensation structure enables your firm to reward employees who perform different work activities and produce different outcomes. (0.59)
• Your firm’s current work structure enables employees to develop the behaviors necessary to perform new/different work activities. (0.71)
• Your firm’s current performance management process would enable your firm to motivate its employees to perform different work activities. (0.81)
• Your firm’s current staffing procedures enable your firm to select employees who possess the skills necessary to be effective in performing many different work activities. (0.74)
• Your firm’s current training process enables employees to learn new/different work activities. (0.67)

Response options for each item range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Source

• Way, S. A., Tracey, J. B., Fay, C. H., Wright, P. M., Snell, S. A., Chang, S., & Gong, Y. (2015). Validation of a multidimensional HR flexibility measure. Journal of Management, 41(4), 1098-1131.

Comments

Due to the thoroughness of the scale development and validation process, the scales should be highly valid and reliable. The standardized path coefficient of the first item is quite low.

Related Scales

• HR flexibility: resource flexibility in HR practices, resource flexibility in employee skills and behaviors, coordination flexibility in HR practices, coordination flexibility in contingent worker skills and behaviors, coordination flexibility in employee skills and behaviors