Research and publication

In this paper, the authors argue that multicultural skills and relational leadership act as enablers for open innovation, and thereby examine the process through which teams can utilize multicultural skills to support the development of relational leadership and knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) through individual interaction and relationship building. The authors address the following research question: How does relational leadership enable open innovation (OI) among employees with multicultural skills?

With open innovation (OI) playing an important role in many organizations’ innovation strategy, there is growing interest in the human aspects of OI. An important challenge for managing OI remains the motivation of individuals for knowledge sharing and sourcing (KSS). To address this issue, we argue that managers responsible for OI need to use collaborative human resource management (collaborative HRM) practices to create the conditions to develop relational leadership and an open innovation mindset (OI mindset) among employees. Since OI research is largely focused on the organizational level, the micro-foundations of OI, as well as the interdependencies across team and individual levels are not yet fully understood. There is no systematic approach for understanding the role of collaborative HRM and the process through which employees’ KSS and use OI within their organizations. We build on social exchange theory to develop a multi-level model of collaborative HRM practices used through relational leadership and OI mindset to enable employees to KSS and improve OI performance.

There is growing interest in the role of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in managing employees and supporting their capacity for innovation in high-tech firms. In this paper, using dynamic capabilities theory we examine the role of SHRM in supporting open innovation (OI) performance of employees in four US multinational technology firms. We introduce OI mindset as a new concept that is critical for organisations engaging in OI and conceptualise it as consisting of values, attitudes, and beliefs that capture an individual’s openness towards knowledge sourcing and sharing inside and outside organisational boundaries. We examine the mediating role of OI mindset on the relationship between SHRM and OI performance. Our results confirm three hypotheses and that OI mindset mediates the relationship between SHRM and OI performance. These findings demonstrate the utility of OI mindset and the important role of SHRM in predicting OI performance. We draw implications for theory and HR practice in the Asia-Pacific region.