Human capital in the Knowledge-intensive firms:Theoretical model and operationalization of the human capital critical components to the company performance

This contribution is a part of a PhD. Project of which the main objective is to define and operationalize the contribution of the human capital to the company performance, in the specific context of the Knowledge-Intensive Firms (KIFs). This contribution focuses on the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) theories, particularly raising the following question: “How to conceptualize human capital within a KIF?” (Schuler & Jackson, 1995; Starbuck, 1992). Indeed, during the construction of our research project, we noticed a gap in the SHRM literature, consisting in a lack of precise and contingent conceptualization of human capital in today’s companies. Indeed, the “classical” studies generally do not consider the fact that People is a central actor in the relationship between HR practices and performance, and do not include human individual-level variables (ex.background, personality, attitudes and behaviours) as mediatory variables in this relationship. These components are yet recognized by the authors and the managers as strategic assets for the firm,representing a competitive advantage, and contributing to the general performance of the company. As the final point of the 1st phase of this thesis, this contribution aims to present the conclusions of two parallel researches consisting in a theoretical model and an operationalization of the human capital concept. Precisely, 1) we will first present a brief literature review of the conceptualizations of the human capital in SHRM (Flamboltz & Lacey, 1981; Schuler & Jackson,1995 among others), in the economic theories (Becker, 1964; Schultz, 1961) and in Knowledge management (KM) concepts (Bontis, 2001). A second complementary research consists in 2) an inductive case study research (Yin, 1989) aiming to understand their own conceptualization of the critical components of the human capital in this type of companies. The results of this case study highlight the specific components of human capital that are perceived as critical by the managers in the KIFs, and empirically complete and specialize our chosen theoretical conceptualization. Finally, consolidating the results of the two first phases, 3) we propose a theoretical model to analyse the contribution of human capital to the company performance, developing our specific operationalization of the concept. We will introduce the components of this operationalization in the classical theoretical model of the relationship between HR practices and company organizational performance as mediatory individual-level variables.