A contingent approach to the role of human capital and competencies on firm strategy

Abstract

Employees play a relevant role in firm competitiveness due to their personal competencies and the human capital they constitute for the organisation. The objective of this paper is to assess whether different strategic contexts condition the emergence of different employees competencies. Moreover, accordingly with the strategy chosen, we analyse to what extent these competencies explain the differences in terms of value and uniqueness of the human capital. A set of proposed hypotheses is tested by means of structural equation models considering a sample of manufacturing firms. Results support the finding that prospectors favour proactive and customer-oriented competencies, while defenders foment competencies much more results-oriented. We also observe that the competency of customer orientation explains the value of human capital in prospectors, whilst this human capital dimension is explained by means of results oriented competencies in defender firms. Finally, regarding the uniqueness of human capital, it is explained by proactive competencies in prospectors but we do not find any significant result for defenders.