Human Resource Slack, Drivers or Inhibitors of Organizational Performance: A Systematic Review

Human resources slack refers to more human resources than the organization needs, which can have different and even contradictory effects on organizational performance. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of this new concept in the field of human resources on the organization performance.

This study was qualitative and fundamental with a systematic review in case of purpose. Therefore, the systematic search was limited to two databases including Elsevier (Scopus) and scientific network information sciences institute (Thomson Reuters) to identify and extract the articles. CASP standard checklist was used to assess the study validity, and Cohen kappa index equal to 0.731 was applied in SPSS software to assess the study reliability which was confirmed.

A model was suggested through investigating the existing articles in order to clearly state the manner of human resources slack effect on the organizations performance. Referring to the articles, the model introduces our types of human resources slack including Value-oriented, Knowledge-oriented, Surplus-oriented, Accumulation-oriented from two aspects of being relative or absolute, and also being knowledge-based or non-knowledge-based and considering short-term and long-term period.

The model presented in the research can be the basis for future research in order to optimize Human resource slack in various human resource management measures such as training, rewarding, and compensating evaluation, etc. In the proposed pattern, value-oriented and knowledge-based human resources slack with positive effects and Surplus-oriented human resources slack and to some extent Accumulation-oriented human resources slack with negative effects were evaluated. However, having too many of each type can be detrimental to an organization's performance.