HR Analytics as an Organizational Learning Capability: Dynamic Capabilities, Absorptive Capacity, And Double-Loop Learning

ABSTRACT Objective: This article reconceptualises HR analytics from a decision-support tool to an organisational learning capability by integrating three theoretical traditions that have not been jointly mobilised in the HR analytics literature: dynamic capabilities theory, absorptive capacity, and organisational learning theory. Design/methodology: A theoretical integrative review (Torraco, 2005) synthesizes three bodies of literature through a structured analytical protocol. Published empirical findings from prior studies are reinterpreted under the integrated theoretical lens as secondary empirical anchoring. Findings: HR analytics maturity activates dynamic HR capabilities (sensing, seizing, reconfiguring) that produce organisational learning only when absorptive capacity mediates the conversion of analytical outputs into actionable knowledge. Learning depth, from single-loop correction to double-loop reconfiguration, determines the strategic quality of human capital decisions. Eight propositions and four contextual moderators are formalised. Implications: This article offers a novel application, among the first in the HR analytics domain, of the dynamic capabilities-absorptive capacity-organizational learning nexus, shifting the field’s guiding question from “What can HR analytics do?” to “How does an organisation learn through HR analytics?”