Determinants of the human capital department development programs toward achieving functional strategic objectives: a fuzzy hybrid approach

Purpose Due to the important role of strategic human resources in fulfilling the main objectives of organizations on the one hand and the necessity of having suitable functional strategies in place to operationalize the developmental programs on the other hand, this study aims to identify the factors and sub-factors of developmental programs and their priorities as well as the relationship and interactions of the identified criteria in human capital developmental programs through a hybrid fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory –analytic network process approach. Also, the rank of functional strategies to achieve these human resource developmental programs is determined using fuzzy VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) technique. Design/methodology/approach Through an in-depth review of the relevant literature, the most important criteria and sub-criteria were determined. Then, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among 20 top managers and experts of the surveyed bank. Using geometric mean, the criteria were screened. In the next step, the second pairwise questionnaire was designed and distributed among eight experts, to determine the relations and interrelations among these factors their relevant sub-factors and prioritize them. Finally, using the third designed questionnaire and fuzzy, VIKOR (FVIKOR) technique the ranks of functional strategies were determined. Findings Analysis of the results showed that “future wellness and retirement” is the most influential factor and the “retention” factor is the most permeable factor. Also, human capital planning is the most important factor of this department’s developmental programs in achieving its strategic objectives. Factors “recruiting and hiring,” “retention,” “empowerment” and “future wellness and retirement” were ranked second to fifth, respectively. Finally, the application of the FVIKOR technique revealed that “enhancement and improvement of incentive systems” is the best functional strategy to achieve the developmental plans of the human capital department. Research limitations/implications One of the limitations of this study is the generalizability of the findings, which may be limited by the single case study method used. Practical implications This study presents a comprehensive and effective tool which could specifically help policymakers and top managers of the survey company and other managers of the banking sector in general, to use a quantitative approach toward identification and prioritizations of the determinants factors of the human capital developmental programs toward achieving functional strategic objectives to enhance the satisfaction of their internal customer as the most important asset of their organizations which might lead to the increased external customer satisfaction and, subsequently, increased competitive advantage. Originality/value To the best knowledge of the authors, this is one the first studies of its kind which attempts through a hybrid fuzzy analytical network process and fuzzy DEMATEL approach, presents a structural network model to examine the interrelationships among the human capital developmental programs and prioritizes them, also simultaneously rank the functional strategies toward achieving these programs using FVIKOR technique.