The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital

This Handbook provides a much needed, authoritative, and inter-disciplinary survey of concepts, applications, and research on human capital, the stock of human capabilities and knowledge found in organizations. It is designed for scholars and graduate students in business and across the social sciences, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

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Macroeconomic research on human capital - the stock of human capabilities and knowledge - has been extensively published but to date the literature has lacked a comprehensive analysis of human capital within the organization. The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital has been designed to fill that gap, providing an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up to date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications. Specially commissioned contributions from over 40 authors reveal the importance of human capital for contemporary organizations, exploring its conceptual underpinnings, relevance to theories of the firm, implications for organizational effectiveness, interdependencies with other resources, and role in the future economy. Unlike neoclassical macroeconomic concepts of human capital, human capital in organizations is shown to be dynamic and heterogeneous, requiring new theories and management frameworks. The systemic role of human capital is explored, revealing it as the lynchpin of social, structural and other forms of intangible and tangible capital. Connections between human capital and organizational performance are investigated from HR management, procurement, alignment, value appropriation, and accounting perspectives. Links between micro and macro perspectives are provided through analyses of inter firm human capital mobility, national and regional human capital formation regimes and industry employment relations practices.

This Handbook is designed for scholars and graduate students of organization and management theory, strategy, entrepreneurship, knowledge and intellectual capital, accounting, IT, HR, IR, economic sociology and cultural studies. For policy makers and practitioners it should provide an up to date guide to the nature and role of human capital in contemporary organizations and the roles that government, industry and other extra firm institutions can play in facilitating its development.