Research pick: Banking on ambidextrous employees - "Flexibility-oriented human resource management system and employee ambidexterity"

Research in the International Journal of Business Excellence has investigated how a company’s human resource management practices can affect the way in which employees balance two different types of behaviour at work: exploitation, where they focus on the effective use of existing resources effectively and exploration where the employee tries out new ideas and takes risks in their job with a view to improvement. The researchers also considered the notion of psychological capital in this context.

Sirikul Cheewakoset, Patchara Popaitoon, and Pasu Decharin of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand surveyed 419 employees in large banking organisations in Thailand and looked at the relationships between exploitation and exploration and flexibility-oriented human resource management (FHRM) systems.

The researchers found that different aspects of FHRM had different effects on employee behaviour. Moreover, their findings suggest that appropriate human resource practices could have a strong impact on employees, particularly those with psychological capital – a positive attitude and confidence. Indeed, the right combination allowed employees to balance exploitation and exploration most effectively with a positive effect on their work and ultimately, by implication, with the company’s targets.

The team points out that independent research has often suggested that successful companies must excel at both exploitation and exploration. However, historically these two seemingly contrary approaches have been kept separate within the corporate ethos. Both perhaps driving the company but without a direct connection to each other. The new findings suggest that bringing the two approaches together and ensuring a positive balance within the company could have a synergistic effect overall. Allowing employees to strengthen the core activities but also to generate new business, improve the service offered to customers, devise new products, and seek out and target new market segments.

The team concedes that the current study relates directly only to the banking sector in terms of the data they have obtained. Future studies might be extended into other sectors to develop a sense of whether or not the same human resource tools can be used elsewhere in order to improve the balance between exploitation and exploration.

Cheewakoset, S., Popaitoon, P. and Decharin, P. (2023) ‘Flexibility-oriented human resource management system and employee ambidexterity: a moderating role of psychological capital’, Int. J. Business Excellence, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp.288–308.