Boundaryless career and adaptive HR practices in Japan's hotel industry

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims at analyzing the underlying factors that encourage an increasing number of Japanese workers to move across the corporate boundaries in the course of career development, and then understanding the nature and the consequences of the corporate human resource practices in response to it.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors chose the Japanese hotel industry as the research object, since it is perceived as one of the industries in which the boundaryless career‐seeking behavior is more remarkable than others. A total of 18 hotel employees, including hotel managers, were approached as the samples of in‐depth interviews.

Findings

A grounded theory‐based analysis of the data collected has led to a causal relation map, which describes the relationship between their orientation in career development and the corporate human resource practices in response to it. The adaptive human resource practices had an influence on the behaviors of workers and furthermore made the mobility in workforce higher. In such circumstances, companies need to clarify the boundary between the core and the periphery within an organization for the purpose of protecting organizational knowledge, while the usual corporate boundary fades out.

Research limitations/implications

This paper researched Japan's hotel industry by in‐depth interviews and led to several findings. Future study should include more industries as a research site and quantitative analysis to generalize the findings.

Originality/value

Past research in the business organization studies indicates that organizational knowledge is one of the salient factors that encompass a firm's competitive advantage, and its accumulation is created by the human resources in a given organization. If this holds true, the increasing fluidity of workers beyond the organizational boundaries might well affect a firm's generation and retention of its organizational knowledge. This paper describes the prospects and a way out of this phenomenon.

Citation

Yamashita, M. and Uenoyama, T. (2006), "Boundaryless career and adaptive HR practices in Japan's hotel industry", Career Development International, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 230-242. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430610661759