Orchestrating an organizational mastery climate: Lessons from human resource managers

Abstract

This study aims to explore how HR professionals orchestrate an organizational mastery climate (i.e., a climate that fosters employees’ effort and cooperation in learning, development and skill mastery) in their organizations. Theoretically, the study builds on HR systems theory (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004) and the literature on HR alignment. The study is informed by thirty-four in-depth interviews with senior HR leaders in Indonesia from multiple industries and scale of businesses. Several themes emerged from the thematic analysis of the data, accentuating the alignment between the HR function, the employees and the senior management team. These themes are found to be critical to achieve the synergistic effects of HR practices in order to establish organizational mastery climate. Theoretically, this study contributes to the expansion of the strategic human resource management (HRM) body of knowledge by highlighting (1) the crucial role the HR function plays in establishing organizational mastery climate; and (2) the importance of aligning HR practices with key stakeholder interests to establish an organizational mastery climate. The study provides a practical model and a checklist for people management professionals for creating and maintaining a strong and unified organizational learning climate.