How to survive to social crises? An HR analytics data-driven approach to improve social sustainable operations' effectiveness

Despite the growing interest regarding companies’ sustainability, its social dimension has mostly been neglected by academics and practitioners. Consequently, this study aims to address this issue by investigating if the adoption of human resource (HR) analytics can positively influence the impact of social sustainable operations practices (SSOP) on employees’ motivation and engagement, and the effect of these last on organizational retention. Data were collected through online questionnaires addressed to 281 HR managers of heterogeneous companies from Europe and analyzed through a structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The findings confirmed the positive effect of SSOP on employee motivation and engagement, and of these last on employee retention. Furthermore, they confirmed that the usage of HR analytics positively moderates the relationship between SSOP and employee motivation and engagement. This study contributes to both sustainable operations management and HR management literature streams. First, it adopts a multidisciplinary perspective which considers also evidence from HR management literature, allowing us to concentrate on the social dimension of sustainability. Second, it provided further insight regarding the adoption of a data-driven approach in relation to social sustainable operations management. Finally, it contributes to HR analytics related literature by demonstrating its impact also on organizational aspects not directly controlled by the HR department.