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HRM operational models and practices to enable strategic agility in PBOs: Managing paradoxical tensions

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  • Ambituuni, Ambisisi
  • Azizsafaei, Farzaneh
  • Keegan, Anne

Abstract

When project-based organizations (PBOs) pursue strategic agility, they develop increased adaptation capabilities such as improvisation, fluidity and flexibility. However, these capabilities also introduce paradoxical tensions between practices for enabling freedom vs. controlling, practices for combining work desegregation vs segregation, and practices for enabling peripheral vision vs enabling focal vision. In this paper, we set out to identify the HRM operational models and practices developed as responses to paradoxical tensions associated with striving for strategic agility in PBOs. Our paper contributes to literature by showing how HRM is implicated in the management of paradoxical tensions, and also in the dynamic nature of movements of paradoxical tensions arising from the improvisational tendencies of PBOs. We also argue that the role of HRM in sensing the emergence of paradoxical tensions within PBOs, and in managing responses to these tensions under time pressure, is becoming increasingly important for those PBOs aspiring to strategic agility.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Azizsafaei, Farzaneh & Keegan, Anne, 2021. "HRM operational models and practices to enable strategic agility in PBOs: Managing paradoxical tensions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 170-182.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:133:y:2021:i:c:p:170-182
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.04.048
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    2. Mehwish Rafiq & Aimen Hasan & Zahid Latif & Ambreen Kamil & Ali Raza Zaidi & Sudhair Abbas Bangash, 2024. "HRM Strategies and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Assessing Strategic Agility Mediating Impact," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 13(3), pages 379-384.
    3. Gilbert, Patrick & Laporte, Marie-Eve, 2022. "War and peace in hospitals: Humans, objects and paradoxes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 253-263.
    4. Chen, Jian-xun & Zhang, Bo & Zhan, Wu & Sharma, Piyush & Budhwar, Pawan & Tan, Hui, 2022. "Demystifying the non-linear effect of high commitment work systems (HCWS) on firms’ strategic intention of exploratory innovation: An extended resource-based view," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Dimple & Mamta Tripathi, 2024. "Bridging the Gap Between High-Performance Work System and Organizational Performance: Role of Organizational Agility, Transformational Leadership, and Human Resource Flexibility," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 25(2), pages 369-393, June.
    6. Enrique de Diego Ruiz & Paloma Almodóvar & Ignacio Danvila del Valle, 2023. "What drives strategic agility? Evidence from a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA)," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 599-627, June.
    7. Nataliia Dotsenko & Dmytro Chumachenko & Yuliia Husieva & Nataliia Kosenko & Igor Chumachenko, 2022. "Sustainable Management of Healthcare Settings’ Personnel Based on Intelligent Project-Oriented Approach for Post-War Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-18, November.

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