Safety of Technogenic Environment doi: 10.1515/ste-2015-0003 _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 2015 / 7 17 Linking Human Resource Management and Knowledge Management via Commitment to Safety Karin Kuimet 1 , Marina Järvis 2 , Anu Virovere 3 , Jelena Hartšenko 4 1,3 Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences, 2,4 Tallinn University of Technology Abstract – This paper contributes to the development of the human resource management (HRM), organisational (safety) culture and knowledge management literature through developing the linkage and relationship among them. The article suggests that the HRM concepts and frameworks could play an important role in the safety knowledge exchange within the organisation. The research method includes exploratory case studies, interviews and evaluation questionnaires in order to clarify how HRM practices are adopted for safety management systems. Keywords – Human resource management, knowledge management, Organisational learning, safety culture, social and human capital. I. INTRODUCTION Safety management, health and well-being in the workplace have become the important elements of work life quality [1], [2]. In manufacturing industries, safety has to be an enduring value. Employees’ attitudes and safety behaviour are based on the adopted and recognised values within the organisation [2]. An organisation has a high potential for strong occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMs) when safety is a clearly recognised value and is integrated into all daily activities [3]–[6]. Organisational learning has become increasingly important for establishing dynamic capability and strategic renewal as well as for any organisation to support continuous changes to face the growing complexity of the market [9], [12]. For learning to occur, several conditions should be satisfied: the learning environment should consist of social relationship networks, in which people interact; organisational structure should provide possibilities for sustained interaction, conversations, socialisation, teamwork and cooperation among its members and, thus, enables collective learning. The growing awareness of the importance of knowledge to organisational success has put the emphasis on creating tools, practices and processes to support the acquisition, sharing and integration of new knowledge from outside the organisation as well as inside the organisation [9]. Knowledge, competence and the ability to learn are considered significant constituents for organisational performance [13]–[15], organisational competitiveness and they are also the central resources for the achievement of the goal of OHSMSs [17], [18]. Workplace safety is a form of organisational expertise, which can be viewed as a situated practice, an emerging property of a socio- technical system, the result of a collective process, a ‘doing’ which involves people, interaction, technologies as well as social relations [14], [19], [20], [21], [22]. Occupational safety is, therefore, situated in the system of on-going practices that has both explicit (for instance, accident records, theories, safety regulations and guidelines etc.) and tacit (for example, safety engineer’s experience, occupational hazard recognition, perceptual and cognitive skills) dimensions [3]. When people solve complex problems in the field of occupational health and safety (OH&S), they bring knowledge, skills and experience to the situation, and as they engage in problem solving, they share their internal knowledge with others, so that tacit knowledge is converted into new tacit and explicit knowledge. Generally, knowledge sharing refers to exchange knowledge among members in the organisation and focuses on the human capital. Knowledge transfer refers to structural capital and the transformation of individual knowledge to group or organisational knowledge, which becomes built into process, products and services [23]. Several researchers [7], [17] also suggested that the principles and tools of KM should be used to facilitate the management of the existing individual (personal) knowledge, structural knowledge (i.e., knowledge codified into manuals, reports, databases, and data warehouses), and organisational knowledge (activity of learning within the organisation) in the fast domain of practical application [7]. KM deals with people and information technology; therefore, it has become an important area for HR personnel who are managing people effectively in an organisation [24]. Organisational learning is a process, during which organisations share, create, spread, and expand their knowledge, connecting from groups to an organisation [4], [25], [27]. This is also a tool for the development of Communities of Practice (CoP) and potentially gives a possibility for employees to exchange explicit and tacit knowledge [2], [4]. A theoretical basis for CoP was provided in 1998 [28] as an evolutionary process for learning in groups. In addition, CoP comprise everything that their members in the organisation negotiate or produce [28], which also includes symbols, technology, textual and symbols in a “system of material relations” [20]. CoP are put into practice in informal groups of people who have a particular common activity and, as a consequence, have some common values, knowledge, and a sense of community identity [3], [29]. Based on the sociological view of learning, individuals at organisations continuously obtain, combine, modify and use knowledge through their everyday cooperation and interaction [27], [30]. Organisations have potential and capabilities for developing, creating, sharing and utilising knowledge, the development and cultivation of three multi-level components of intellectual DE GRUYTER OPEN