The Mediating Effect of Competitive
Advantage on the Relationship Between
Human IT Resources and Performance
Ehsan Ali Salem Alqararah and Wan Mohd Nazri Bin Wan Daud
Abstract Human IT capability gained mainly from the organization based on the
strategic perspective of human resources. Human capital is a valuable resource for
organizations as intellectual assets. Hence, human IT resources can be perceived as
a strategic capability that directly impacts performance in the Jordanian banking
sector. This research aims to examine the mediating effect of competitive advantage
between IT human resources on performance in the Jordanian banking sector from
2014 to 2019. To achieve the research objectives, it is expected from this study to
generate practical knowledge that can be used by the IT human resources of the
respective banks to create a competitive advantage and improve their performance.
Additionally, this study is expected to add to knowledge in various ways, including
demonstration of how IT human resources as a dynamic resource could impact the
competitive advantage and firm performance in light of the Resource-Based View
(RBV) theory. Thus, a quantitative method is used to collect and analyze data from
16 Jordanian banks; the targeted population is about 853 management staff of the
Jordanian banks. The empirical results showed the mediating effect of competitive
advantage on the relationship between IT human resources and performance; this
conclusion related to the sufficient capturing of the respective setting that in turn
becomes a positive impact. Furthermore, human IT resources in the given context
could be revealed with other resources and capabilities, or through different busi-
ness routines.
Keywords IT human resources
Performance
Competitive advantage
Resource-based view (RBV)
E. A. S. Alqararah (&) W. M. N. B. W. Daud
Faculty of Business and Management Science, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Kuala Nerus,
21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: Wanmnazri@unisza.edu.my
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Al-Emran et al. (eds.), Proceedings of International Conference on Emerging
Technologies and Intelligent Systems, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 322,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85990-9_78
983