Impact of Talent Agility on Innovation Adoption and Sustainable Business Performance: A Study of Indian Automobile Industry

Abstract

The business world has gone through a systematic phase of rapid industrial revolutions. The emergence of industry 4.0 (I4.0) has created a storm in the global market through smart factory, smart manufacturing, IoT, cloud-based manufacturing (C-BM), cyber-physical production systems, smart HR 4.0 and many more. However, the Indian automobile industries are expected to undergo a dramatic transformation in I4.0. The automobile industry is the spearhead of Indian manufacturing sector, having a high growth rate, generating more employment, revenue, and profit. It provides employment to over 35 million people and contributes 7.1 percent of GDP. However, it has been seen that the emerging technologies of I4.0 have been successfully implemented in countries like USA, UK, and Japan. Whereas the concept of I4.0 is still in the nascent stage in India. The problem of dealing with the rapid technological changes, handling unpredictable and disruptive environments has been a pressing concern for both academia and industry. Talent agility becomes a strategic imperative for organizations in the digital and globalized business environment with fast-changing customer preferences. It can be defined as developing employees to adapt and evolve with change, provide innovative solutions, and quickly turn around and exhibit skills as the situation prevails. Therefore, developing in-house agile talent is a crucial element in a highly competitive environment, wherein employees can be trained to deal with complexity and ambiguity. Previously, talent agility was studied as an important concern for diversified sectors. Though talent agility is studied in different perspectives, it lacks empirical evidence in the context of innovation adoption with special application to the Indian automobile industries. Thus, the study attempts to conduct empirical research on the key enablers of talent agility, linking with innovation adoption and sustainable business performance in the Indian automobile industry. A survey questionnaire was administered among the middle level and senior level managers of the four wheelers passenger vehicle manufacturing plant in India. Data analysis is carried out using SPSS 24.0 for descriptive statistics. AMOS 26.0 is used to check the fitness of the proposed hypothetical model. Results indicate that climate for innovation, knowledge management, internal corporate communication, learning agility, and are positively associated with innovation adoption. Perceived innovation characteristics are also positively associated with innovation adoption and sustainable business performance. Further, innovation adoption is positively associated with sustainable business performance. However, ambidextrous leadership has a non- significant relationship with innovation adoption. This study will help the automobile practitioners and researchers in understanding talent agility knowledge area to make workforce readily available for the current wave of digital disruptions. This study provides a holistic framework of talent agility and innovation adoption that may act as a blueprint for the Indian automobile industry to attain sustainable business performance in the era of Industry 4.0.