Configuring HRM systems for innovation: managing knowledge tensions in French industrial firms

Purpose - HRM research typically treats firms as facing a categorical choice between radical and incremental innovation. This article reconceptualizes the HRM-innovation relationship through a dominant innovation orientation framework, examining how HRM configurations govern the primary knowledge challenge while generating characteristic knowledge tensions for the subordinate one. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative, configurational case study of four mature French industrial firms; 29 semi-structured interviews analyzed through grounded theory coding, thematic content analysis, and cross-case comparison, using NVivo 14. Findings - All four firms are ambidextrous. Radical-dominant firms deploy an enabling-bureaucratic HRM configuration configured for tacit knowledge accumulation; incremental-dominant firms deploy a flexible collaboration configuration configured for rapid knowledge recombination. Each configuration generates predictable knowledge tensions for the subordinate orientation. Originality/value - This study reframes HRM configurations as contextually dominant institutional responses. It proposes, as a theoretically derived proposition for future empirical testing, a curvilinear U-shaped relationship between HRM formalization and radical innovation dominance, distinguishing enabling from coercive formalization. Practical implications - Configuration-specific mechanisms boundary-spanning roles, parallel recognition streams, and protected exploratory budgets can modulate dominant-configuration costs without dismantling core logic.