How to safeguard critical resources of professional and managerial staff: exploration of a taxonomy of resource retention strategies

Abstract

Based on compliance theory and resource dependence theory, we develop a taxonomy of five organizational resource retention strategies that are appropriate to secure the inflow and stock of professional and managerial staff's competences. These competences are characterized as different categories of resources that professionals and managers control and that are potentially critical for the company's success. We postulate that organizational decision-makers evaluate retention strategies according to their assessment of the criticality of these resources. A cluster analysis, based on data from interviews with 159 top HR managers of German companies, supports the reliability and validity of the theoretically derived taxonomy. We discuss the implications for research and managerial practice. This study contributes to retention literature by introducing a resource dependence perspective. Thereby, we specify a resource-based strategic human resource management view on core employees' competences as strategic assets and offer a theoretical rationale that explains the coherence and scope of retention strategies.