The effects of staffing on company performance results: the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the specific contexts

Purpose The main goal of the article is to determine the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the relationships between staffing the organization and company performance results and to establish whether there are any identifiable regularity in this scope in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period in the HQs and foreign subsidiaries of MNCs. Design/methodology/approach The empirical research included 200 MNCs headquartered in Central Europe. To capture the actual relations between the variables under study the raw data in the variables were adjusted with the efficiency index (EI). The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to verify the research hypotheses and assess the mediating effects. Findings The research findings show that, with the exception of the HQs in the pandemic period, when staffing had a negative effect on the company performance results in quality, in other cases it had a positive effect on results in HRM, finance, innovativeness and quality, both in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period, although this effect was not always statistically significant. Furthermore, the company's performance results in HRM mediate positively the relationships between staffing and the other three categories of company performance results, regardless of the organizational level (HQs' or subsidiaries') and time period under consideration. Additionally, during the pandemic, the company's performance results in HRM mediate the relationships between staffing and the other company's performance results stronger than in the pre-pandemic time. Originality/value In addition to confirming the results of some other studies, the article also provides new knowledge. It determines the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the relationship between staffing and company performance results in finance, innovativeness and quality. Moreover, it identifies certain regularities in the four studied contexts, which is a novelty in this type of research. It also uses an innovative approach to including employee KPIs as the efficiency index in analyzing the relationships between the variables under study.