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This paper aims to explore the relationship between owner-manager or leader’s ambidextrous leadership style and its effect on human resource management (HRM) practices, contextual ambidexterity and knowledge-intensive small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) strategic agility.

This study presents an in-depth qualitative case study analysis of two knowledge-intensive SMEs from India’s information technology and health-care products industry serving a range of global clients. Using the theoretical lenses of empowerment-focused HRM practices, ambidextrous leaders, contextual ambidexterity and strategic agility, semi-structured interview data of leaders, managers and employees of the case organizations were analysed. Through a two-staged analytical process, we abductively developed a novel conceptual framework at the intersection of the above theoretical lenses.

The findings suggest that the knowledge-intensive SME’s strategic agility, ambidexterity and empowerment-focussed HRM approach was influenced by the owner-manager or leader’s ambidextrous leadership style and their philosophy towards managing people and had a positive impact in creating a culture of trust, participation, risk-taking and openness, and led to delivering innovative products and services as well as several positive employee-level outcomes.

Recent literature reviews on HRM In SMEs highlight several gaps, including the impact of owner-manager or leader’s philosophy of managing people in shaping HRM practices and employee outcomes. This paper thus adds to the existing literature on HRM and knowledge-intensive SMEs.

Building on the arguments of expectancy theory and social exchange theory, the present study provides insights into the process by which pay-for-performance (PFP) impacts employee job performance.

Based on a sample size of 226 employees working in a technology company in India, the study examines the relationships between PFP, procedural justice, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee job performance. Data on perceptions of PFP and procedural justice were collected from the employees, data on OCB were collected from the supervisors and the data on employee job performance were collected from organizational appraisal records.

The study found support for the positive relationship between PFP and job performance and for the sequential mediation of the relationship between PFP and job performance via procedural justice and OCB. Further, procedural justice was found to mediate the relationship between PFP and OCB.

The study was cross-sectional, so inferences about causality are limited.

The study tests the relationship between PFP and employee job performance in the Indian work context. The study shows that the existence of PFP is positively related to procedural justice which, in turn, is positively related to OCB. The study found support for the sequential mediation of PFP-job performance relationship via procedural justice and OCB.

The study provides an insight into the underlying process through which PFP is related to employee job performance. To the best of our knowledge, such a study is the first of its kind undertaken in an organizational context.

This study aims to explore talent retention in knowledge-intensive industries by investigating the mediating processes between the existence and application of human resource management (HRM) and employee turnover. Toward this end, drawing on the conservation of resources and job demands–resources theories, a three-dimensional model is examined, which includes the relationship between HRM, knowledge management (KM) and change management (CM), as well as their relationship with employee engagement and employee turnover intention.

The proposed research model has been studied with a sample of 168 talented employees in over six European countries, using a quantitative approach, involving the structural equation modeling method. All data were gathered by a multidimensional questionnaire via prolific, an academic crowdsourcing platform.

Results indicated that knowledge-intensive services firms may achieve higher talent retention through the interaction of HRM with KM and CM practices, which may lead to enhanced employee engagement.

Possible limitations of the study include the relatively small sample size, the self-rate questions for the collection of data and the use of cross-sectional data.

To retain their talented employees, organizations should identify ways to improve their HRM, CM and KM practices. In addition, HR practitioners ought to include their talented employees in all organizational change and KM processes and create mechanisms that successfully support knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing, retention and codification.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine various factors of retaining talented employees in knowledge-intensive services. Furthermore, the study took place in six European countries, i.e. UK, Poland, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Greece, where the research on talent retention is very limited.