Umeå University's logo

The external environment, currently considered as VUCA environment, in which orgnaizations and individuals operate can be characterized by numerous uncertainties. As a result of these uncertainties, one significant aspect that is affected is the individual KSAOs as part of the human capital concept. A thorough understanding of how uncertainties affect KSAOs allows individuals and organizations to adapt, be resilient, and respond effectively to the changing environment. One research field that encompasses the external environment and its uncertainties as well as individual KSAOs is strategic human resource management (SHRM). However, the relationship between these key concepts has not yet been addressed. Also, much of SHRM research has been devoted to the company's perspective, largely ignoring the employees' point of view. Thus, this research aims to fill a gap in prior research by exploring the relationship between the external environment with its uncertainties and individual KSAOs from the employee's perspective. To further implement this knowledge in practice, two scenarios are created to demonstrate the factors companies should focus on in order to increase their human capital's resilience.

To identify the relationship between external uncertainties and individual KSAOs, a conceptual framework was developed. The framework outlines the foundation for a qualitative case study with a Swedish consultancy company as a single case. A comprehensive data foundation was constructed through data triangulation, which involves combining both primary and secondary sources of data. In this study, organizational documents provided by the case company were used as secondary data, while primary data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with six employees of the case company.

The findings indicate differences between prior literature and the collected empirical data. For example, employees' views on prioritizing different KSAOs (Knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics) showed that soft skills were seen as far more important than hard skills when coping with uncertainties. This challenges the prior literature on human capital that has mostly focused on hard skills and the importance of their development through education and training. By using COVID-19 as a recent and accurate example of uncertainty, the data revealed changes in ways of working and work-life balance. It also revealed that environmental and technological uncertainties are currently considered the most effective. While they were seen to have unpredictable, and possibly even negative long-term effects, they were also considered as possibilities for the future. With subjective research philosophy, we could find contradictory opinions within the sample which further extended prior research by highlighting the need for considering individuality rather than the company perspective when making decisions that relate to the external environment , its uncertainties, and the individual KSAOs.