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Human resources analytics (HRA) can potentially create value and provide a competitive advantage; however, whether and how HRA creates this value has been sparsely explored in scholarly literature. Hence, the purpose of this study is to provide a process-oriented framework for value creation from HRA use by exploring the underlying mechanisms, complementary resources and outcomes.

The study used a qualitative research design as the research question was exploratory. A total of 26 in-depth expert interviews with different organizations were conducted. These interviews were transcribed and coded for emerging themes, which were placed in a temporal sequence of occurrence to derive a process understanding of value creation from HRA. Additionally, validation tests were conducted.

The thematic analysis using NVivo provided qualitative evidence of the value-creating potential of HRA. Further, it unraveled the process of value creation from HRA in the form of problem construction, insight generation, the buy-in of stakeholders and solution implementation. This process resulted in various human resource management (HRM) and organizational outcomes. The analysis also highlighted the significance of three complementary resources, namely data quality, analytical competency and business knowledge.

This study offers guidance for HR executives and business managers to assess the conditions under which HRA can add business value to organizations.

The paper is novel as this is among the first studies to provide evidence of value creation from HRA and identify the underlying mechanism, which has been highlighted as a gap in the literature. Based on resource-based theory and its complementarities perspective, the study makes a valuable contribution to the nascent HRA literature.

Based on resource-based and dynamic capabilities theorizing, this study explores how human resource analytics (HRA) can improve human resource management (HRM) performance and organizational performance, with creative problem-solving capability (CPSC) as an underlying mediator for creating value from HRA. It also explores how data quality and HRA personnel expertise act as moderators in this relationship.

Hypotheses are tested in an empirical study including 191 firms using partial least square structural equation modeling technique.

The findings confirm the direct and indirect effect of HRA use and maturity on HRM and organizational performance, as well as the mediating role of CPSC. HRA personnel expertise was found to moderate the relationship between HRA and CPSC, data quality being an important factor.

The findings contribute to the sparse evidence of value creation from HRA use/maturity on HRM and organizational outcomes, providing a theoretical logic of resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view based on the underlying causal mechanism through which HRA creates value. The study identified complementary capabilities which when combined with HRA use/maturity and CPSC result in value creation.