Unraveling the synergistic impact of soft skills on organizational excellence: a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Purpose Organizational excellence is a complex phenomenon that incorporates operational efficiency, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Although classical management theories have long emphasized the need for hard skills like technical competence, recent studies have increasingly recognized the significance of soft skills in achieving organizational excellence. The purpose of this study is to clarify the complex relationships among chosen soft skills and their role in organizational excellence. Design/methodology/approach The study uses complementary analytical design integrating variance-based and configurational methods of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore the possible combinations of soft skills leading to organizational excellence. Findings Although soft skills are necessary for organizational excellence, there may be several equally effective combinations of soft skills that may result in organizational excellence. There is no single optimal combination; instead, a collective set of configurations offers a comprehensive explanation for all cases. Practical implications The study provides actionable insights for HRD professionals, learning and development (L&D) teams, and organizational leaders to enable them to pursue context-specific routes to excellence. The training programs should be flexible, with a focus on tailored development of soft skills in line with business needs for vision fulfillment. The inclusion of complementary soft skills profiling in all strategic human resource practices is justified to enable cost-effective progress towards business goals. Originality/value There has been very little research on these constructs using a set-theoretic approach, making this study unique. The study adds to the existing literature by conceptualizing soft skills as an interrelated system of capabilities, rather than individual attributes, and by providing evidence for the existence of multiple configurations of organizational excellence.