This study structurally examined how human resource orchestration (HRO) of local government frontline managers impacts organizational innovation performance in an administrative environment where digital transformation is routine. The measurement fram...
This study structurally examined how human resource orchestration (HRO) of local government frontline managers impacts organizational innovation performance in an administrative environment where digital transformation is routine. The measurement framework set HRO (talent discovery, talent placement and talent development) as the independent variable and organizational innovation performance (work efficiency and cost reduction, improved service quality and resident satisfaction and quantitative indicators of innovation outcomes) as the dependent variable. Learning orientation (error acceptance, feedback acceptance, knowledge sharing) and innovation behavior (idea suggestion, implementation effort, and change receptivity) were modeled as serial and parallel mediating factors. Analysis was conducted on a valid sample of 506 frontline managers from eight local governments in Daegu Metropolitan City, using reliability and validity tests, structural equation modeling (SEM) and PROCESS macro bootstrapping. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, the total effect of HRO → organizational innovation performance was B = 0.706 (95% CI [0.638, 0.775]), confirming the strong positive effect of HRO on significantly increasing innovation performance. The direct effect was also significant, B = 0.387 (95% CI [0.312, 0.463]), demonstrating that HRO's partial mediation structure holds even when controlling for the learning and innovation pathways.
Second, the total indirect effect was B = 0.346 (95% CI [0.283, 0.411]), indicating that approximately half of the total effect is conveyed through the mediating pathway. Specifically, the indirect effect of the HRO → learning orientation → organizational innovation performance path was significant, with B = 0.153 (95% CI [0.074, 0.232]) and the HRO → innovative behavior → organizational innovation performance path was significant, with B = 0.091 (95% CI [0.055, 0.137]).
Third, the serial double mediation effect of HRO → learning orientation → innovative behavior → organizational innovation performance was verified, with B = 0.156 (95% CI [0.101, 0.221]), confirming that the stepwise transmission mechanism, where learning orientation fosters innovative behavior and its outcomes are transferred to performance, is the most prominent path. All three paths had confidence intervals that did not include zero, ensuring statistical significance. In particular, the effect sizes of the serial path and the learning orientation-only path were relatively larger than those of the innovative behavior-only path. These results empirically support the processual logic that frontline managers' HROs go beyond resource alignment and deployment. By activating learning mechanisms that embrace errors and circulate feedback and knowledge, they stimulate members' idea suggestions, implementation efforts, and receptiveness to change. This ultimately leads to innovation outcomes tangible in the form of efficiency, service, and output. In other words, performance creation in public organizations is amplified through a chain reaction of HRO → learning orientation → innovative behavior while simultaneously exhibiting a dual-channel influence structure where the direct performance effects of HRO coexist.
Academically this study contributes significantly to extending public sector HRO research into behavioral and learning mechanisms to a serial dual mediation model. By applying the orchestration logic previously discussed primarily in the private sector, to the local government context, this study quantitatively demonstrates that learning orientation and innovative behavior are key mediating factors in performance transfer. In terms of policy and practice, we propose first establishing a learning foundation that institutionalizes error acceptance, feedback and knowledge sharing. Second, strengthening the innovation implementation infrastructure that supports idea generation and implementation and encourages change acceptance. Third, embedding HRO capabilities, which link talent discovery, deployment and development, into manager training and evaluation systems. This governance is expected to maximize both the direct and indirect effects of HRO, stably driving innovation performance in local governments.
Therefore this study demonstrates, through a sophisticated statistical model that HROs in local government frontline managers significantly enhance organizational innovation performance through a linear and cumulative pathway from learning to innovation and performance. This provides a theoretical basis for explaining the performance mechanisms of public organizations in the digital transformation era through an integrated framework of resource allocation (structure), learning(process) and action(implementation). Furthermore it suggests the potential for future research to expand upon this understanding, incorporating interactions across organizational levels through multilevel data and longitudinal designs.