Connecting the dots: a serial mediation of intellectual capital and organizational ambidexterity between high-performance work system and innovation performance

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>Achieving innovation performance (IP) through high-performance work system (HPWS) remained relatively unexplored. Literature on the HPWS-IP linkage mechanism raises a question mark and highlights the existence of a black box. Therefore, the present study aimed to empirically fill the gap in the literature by developing a framework to theorize HPWS nexus with IP through serial mediation of intellectual capital (IC) and organizational ambidexterity (OA).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>To answer the study questions survey-based, multi-source and time-lagged data were collected to examine the proposed model. SPSS 24 version was used to evaluate descriptive statistics and through Smart-PLS 3.32., partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the study hypotheses.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Study findings indicate that HPWS not only has a significant direct impact on IP but also has a significant indirect relationship with IP through the mediation of IC and OA. Both IC and OA also mediated this relationship serially.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>The originality of the study lies in the fact that it studied HPWS as an antecedent of IC and OA and IP as the consequence. Further, the study fills the knowledge gap in previous literature in which limited or no study has used the serial mediation model with two mediators particularly IC and OA to explore the relationship between HPWS and IP.</jats:p></jats:sec>