Abstract:
This research aims to identify the impact of human resource information systems (HRIS) on competitive advantage and mediating effect of training and development in multinational companies in Sri Lanka. In addition to that, this study intends to contribute to filling the knowledge gap and empirical gap by looking into the relationship between human resource information systems and competitive advantage with evidence from the literature. There is less research context in Sri Lanka to test the human resource information systems, competitive advantage, and training and development in multinational companies in Sri Lanka. This study examined the relationship between human resource information systems on competitive advantage and mediating effect of training and development in multinational companies in Sri Lanka. This research is deductive (theory–testing) research, and this was a quantitative and cross-sectional study based on multinational organisations in Sri Lanka. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire using a convenient sampling technique. Correlation analysis and simple regression analysis were used to measure the relationship and to test the advanced hypothesis of the study by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The analysed results show that there is a significant positive impact on HRIS and competitive advantage, while there is a significant impact of training and development as a mediator on the relationship between HRIS and competitive advantage. Furthermore, this study advocates for organisational management to spearhead the development of advanced HRIS and encourages their utilisation for training and development purposes. By doing so, the skills of the organisation's members can be systematically developed, leading to the organisation gaining a competitive advantage. Moreover, this study was limited to one multinational company in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the current study suggested conducting the study by considering all organisations in the business world within Sri Lanka to get an effective output from future research.
