human capital

human capital, intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population. These resources include all the knowledge, talents, skills, abilities, experience, intelligence, training, judgment, and wisdom possessed individually and collectively, the cumulative total of which represents a form of wealth available to nations and organizations to accomplish their goals.

Human capital is available to generate material wealth for an economy or a private firm. In a public organization, human capital is available as a resource to provide for the public welfare. How human capital is developed and managed may be one of the most important determinants of economic and organizational performance.

The concept of human capital stems from the economic model of human-resource capitalism, which emphasizes the relationship between improved productivity or performance and the need for continuous and long-term investments in the development of human resources. This model can be applied on a broad scale where investments in human capital are viewed as affecting national and global economic performance or, more narrowly, where investments in people are viewed as crucial to organization performance. That differs from a more traditional and instrumental approach where human resources are primarily seen as a cost to be contained beyond immediate and short-term needs. This short-term view often addresses change or poor performance by seeking government intervention to offset competition and by using cutback methods for keeping wages down, contracting out, and automating jobs.

A human-resource capitalism model argues that the principal source of productive capacity, whether in an economy or organization, rests in the capacity of people. Therefore, strategies need to be developed to capitalize on the potential of this resource by developing learning systems that will cause the capacity of human capital to grow into the future. For a national economy, this may entail reforming educational institutions to ensure the provision of a quality workforce that fits the needs of industry for high economic productivity and the maintenance or improvement of the national quality of life. For an organization, this model suggests that high productivity and performance depend on developing learning systems that reflect the commitment of an organization to its human resources. As a result, ongoing investments in training, skill development, and job enrichment (versus expansion) engender a reciprocal commitment among members to organizational goals and objectives.

This represents a shift in thinking away from the notion that human resources are to be consumed, as are other, nonhuman resources, and that members of an organization need to be controlled to ensure compliance with organization norms. Instead, human resources are to be nurtured to arrive at a mutual commitment where tangible investments by the organization are favoured and then reciprocated by its members with higher levels of performance. Human-resource capitalism recognizes that the key factors of performance depend on having an adequate supply of high-quality human resources, management strategies that emphasize quality and productivity, and patterns of work organization that foster both of these goals. The emphasis on human capitalism in an organization goes beyond recruiting and compensating the highest-qualified people possible by investing in their development heavily, managing them wisely, and, ultimately, retaining them for the long term.

The management of human capital is diffused throughout an organization. All management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organization and its employees are seen as important. As a result, all management actions can positively or negatively affect the potential of human capital to influence organization performance. In this view, although the organization may contribute to the development of human capital, its ownership rests with each individual. Collectively, all the knowledge, skills, and abilities within an organization and available at any given time constitute a human capital pool. Although this talent is available to achieve positive performance, the totality of management practices needs to consistently tap this human capital pool in such ways as to influence individual and group attitudes and behaviour toward the desired organizational goals.

Reciprocal commitment in an organization suggests that a relationship exists between certain management practices and performance. At a point where the total effort of human capital coalesces into a critical mass, high organizational performance seems possible. Here, human capital, fully developed and tapped appropriately, can influence organization-level outcomes. Empirical research in the private sector appears to identify specific management practices as universally superior to others in achieving firm-level outcomes such as market share and profitability. This universal perspective has led to benchmarking certain practices as “best” for contributing to high performance. Empirical research in the public sector establishing such a relationship is sparse. This may be the result of difficulties in measuring government-level outcomes and being able to clearly establish this connection, because outcomes are often influenced by a myriad of variables outside the control of public management. Even so, the same superior management practices thought to favourably influence human capital in private enterprise have been often adopted in public administration reforms.

Practices thought to result in a high-quality, committed, and flexible workforce in private enterprise are also seen as important contributors to productivity and performance in the public sector. High levels of expenditures in training and development, empowering workers with decentralized decision-making authority, and encouraging participation, pay for performance, the use of self-managed work teams, and flexible job designs, among others, are commonly associated with improved performance in public agencies. Theories of motivation support such management practices where the first priority is to ensure that workers have the skills and ability to perform (training and development) and where the second priority is to afford them the opportunity to test their problem-solving skills (decentralized decision authority). The belief is that investing heavily in improving worker skills and abilities leads to a higher-quality workforce. This combined with valued rewards and a role in problem solving can result in greater effort, commitment, and motivation within a workforce that is more flexible and innovative. This combination then, it is thought, results in higher organization performance.

Alvin W. Gouldner, “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement,” American Sociological Review, 25:161–178 (April 1960); David E. Guest, “Human Resource Management and Performance: A Review and Research Agenda,” The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(3):263–276 (June 1997); Ray Marshall and Marc Tucker, Thinking for a Living: Work, Skills, and the Future of the American Economy (1992); Patrick M. Wright, Benjamin B. Dunford, and Scott A. Snell, “Human Resources and the Resource Based View of the Firm,” Journal of Management, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 701–721 (December 2001).