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Drivers of workforce agility: a dynamic capability perspective

Suchitra Ajgaonkar (Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune, India)
Netra Ganesh Neelam (Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune, India)
Judith Wiemann (Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany)

International Journal of Organizational Analysis

ISSN: 1934-8835

Article publication date: 17 June 2021

Issue publication date: 17 June 2022

2527

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to represent an exploration of drivers of workforce agility under the lens of dynamic capabilities to advance the existing workforce literature on agility and strategic human resource management.

Design/methodology/approach

In-depth qualitative interviews with senior information technology professionals, managers, directors and leadership were conducted. Data coding and analysis followed the Gioia methodology to develop a theoretical framework.

Findings

The theoretical paradigm of workforce agility is seeing revisions. In the past it was solely connected to resource-based view theory, current literature superficially speaks of the link with dynamic capability but lacks comprehensive and strategic understanding. The research brings in the evolutionary change by viewing workforce agility directly under the lens of dynamic capability theory and recognizes workforce agility as a high-level strategy. Based on the analysis of the qualitative interviews this study has developed a conceptual heuristic of workforce agility drivers, interlinked with dynamic capabilities micro-foundations – “sensing”, “seizing”, and “continual renewal”. This paper conceptualizes workforce agility as a response to high pressures for the dynamic capability of the company, which requires reconfiguration and redeployment of external and internal human resources and an inherent need to bring some stability to the internal resources of the company.

Originality/value

There is a growing body of literature linking organizational agility with dynamic capabilities, which overlooks workforce agility. This study is theory-based research on workforce agility, which guides practitioners in making human resource processes more agile.

Keywords

Citation

Ajgaonkar, S., Neelam, N.G. and Wiemann, J. (2022), "Drivers of workforce agility: a dynamic capability perspective", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 951-982. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-11-2020-2507

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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