Abstract
Strategic human resource management (strategic HRM) research has devoted efforts to exploring ways to develop dynamic capabilities to address changing and dynamic environments. However, previous studies have not shown how and why this may happen at the micro-level. Understanding how the strategic HRM system achieves organizational goals by influencing employees’ outcomes is necessary to advance theoretical and practical perspectives. Based on the strategic HRM literature, human capital, and dynamic capabilities theory, we developed a moderated mediation model to investigate how and under what conditions SO-HPWS impacts employees’ task performance and thriving at work via adaptive performance in the healthcare context. Using a two-wave survey of 366 frontline doctors from Chinese public hospitals, we found the mediation role of employee adaptive performance between the relationships between SO-HPWS and employee outcomes (task performance and thriving at work). In addition, inclusive leadership moderated the indirect relationships between SO-HPWS and employee outcomes through adaptive performance; the indirect effect was more substantial for doctors when their department leaders had higher inclusive leadership rather than low inclusive leadership. These findings provide empirical evidence to explain micro-foundations for applying SO-HPWS to build dynamic capabilities and have implications for understanding the strategic role HRM plays in management practice in the context of change and transformation.