Title: Building human capital in the European Foundation for Quality Management model of excellence

Authors: Lorena Para-González; Daniel Jiménez-Jiménez; Ángel R. Martínez-Lorente

Addresses: Department of Economics and Juridical Sciences, University Centre of Defence at the Spanish Air Force Academy, C/Coronel López Peña, s/n, 30720 Santiago de la Ribera (Murcia), Spain ' Department of Management and Finances, University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100, Murcia, Spain ' Department of Business Economics, Technical University of Cartagena, C/ Real 3, 30201 Cartagena, Spain

Abstract: The role of the personnel function, measured by the people criterion of the model developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), in implementing improvements in organisational performance is tested in this paper. It is concluded that human capital allows organisations to obtain competitive advantage through the application of human resource practices. The existing empirical literature does not provide evidence about how human capital plays a mediator role, by increasing the effects of human management policy in the EFQM model. Human resource management can amplify the impact of the People criterion, as independent variable, on organisational performance, as dependent variable. The study reported in this paper has a cross-sectional design, and uses a sample of 200 medium-sized Spanish organisations. The results show how the people criterion of the EFQM model is an essential element in improving organisational results through human capital.

Keywords: European Foundation for Quality Management; EFQM; people criterion; human capital; human resources; knowledge; skills; performance; excellence; partial least squares; PLS; organisational performance; human resource management; HRM; Spain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2016.078211

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2016 Vol.16 No.3/4, pp.219 - 237

Accepted: 01 Apr 2016
Published online: 08 Aug 2016 *

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