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Human Capital and HRM as a Source of Competitive Advantage and Effectiveness: Evidence from Poland

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Competitiveness of CEE Economies and Businesses

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Abstract

The present chapter focuses on the interrelations between organisational human capital and human resources management of a company and their influence on the competitive advantage and company effectiveness. At the outset, we analyse three concepts related to Human Resources Management: High Performance Work System, Competency-Based HRM, and Diversity Management. We present the main benefits, as evidenced by findings from international surveys, which firms can draw from the implementation of such concepts. In the paper, we pay particular attention to the most recent Polish analyses related to each of the aforementioned concepts. They show that, taking into account the state of advancement of HR solutions, Polish organisations lag quite far behind European and American ones. This distance can be reduced, e.g. by the popularisation of tools for measuring human resources in Polish enterprises. One such recent tool is presented in this chapter. This tool could prove instrumental in making Polish employers appreciate the importance of investing in human capital; furthermore, it could increase their knowledge of the effect that HRM practices have on the performance of their enterprises and their competitive position.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The survey was carried out in 104 medium and large enterprises operating in Poland from knowledge-intensive industries (on the sample of 2045 employees and 104 heads of HRM units) as part of the project “Creating engagement in the context of diversity management”, financed from the funds of the National Centre for Science (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) pursuant to agreement No. UMO-2012/07/B/HS4/03008.

  2. 2.

    The “Human capital as a company value component” project (No. POKL.02.01.03-00-036/11) is a system innovative project implemented by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (Project Leader) and the Warsaw School of Economics (Partner), co-financed from the funds of the European Social Fund as part of the Human Capital Operational Programme—Priority II Development of human resources and adaptation potential of enterprises and improvement in the health conditions of working persons, Submeasure 2.1.3 “System support for increasing adaptability of employees and enterprises”.

  3. 3.

    Based on the responses to the survey of 600 companies conducted under the project “Human capital as a company value component”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Labour and Social Affairs, Warsaw, Poland

    Anna Jawor-Joniewicz

  2. SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw, Poland

    Łukasz Sienkiewicz

Authors
  1. Anna Jawor-Joniewicz
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  2. Łukasz Sienkiewicz
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Correspondence to Łukasz Sienkiewicz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

    Piotr Trąpczyński

  2. Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

    Łukasz Puślecki

  3. SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw, Poland

    Mirosław Jarosiński

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Jawor-Joniewicz, A., Sienkiewicz, Ł. (2016). Human Capital and HRM as a Source of Competitive Advantage and Effectiveness: Evidence from Poland. In: Trąpczyński, P., Puślecki, Ł., Jarosiński, M. (eds) Competitiveness of CEE Economies and Businesses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39654-5_9

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