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Author: Akinsanmi, Olubukunola
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Akinsanmi, Olubukunola |
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Human Capital, Specificity, and Value: Making Space for New Perspectives Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Business, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2020 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Human Capital; Mobility; Skills Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Human capital -- the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics an individual possesses which contributes to economic productivity -- is central to the production function of most modern firms, yet the theory that seeks to explain its contribution to firm performance is rooted in outdated assumptions. Recent scholarship has articulated conditions under which its predictions hold, but these conditions rarely reflect the contemporary labor market. Two decades into the 21st century have brought significant technological advancement, increased skill portability and prevalent worker mobility -- both across firms and across regions. It is imperative, therefore, to cultivate new perspectives that revisit the assumptions, re-assess the impact, as well as re-define the nature of this critical firm resource, to account for realities that present-day firms face. In this dissertation, I revisit the core assumption that human capital specificity will deter mobility and find that it increases it. I examine its impacts on labor market decisions in the involuntary turnover context and find that it exacerbates entrepreneurial entry. Instead of a rationally chosen set of acquired skills, I re-define its nature as an unavoidable, malleable, and distinct set of capabilities that emerges as a result of combination with a firm's other idiosyncratic resources. I accomplish this by investigating the process by which human capital interacts with physical working environments – an idiosyncratic complementary firm resource that is rarely discussed in strategy literature. |
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Bibliography Citation
Akinsanmi, Olubukunola. Human Capital, Specificity, and Value: Making Space for New Perspectives. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Business, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2020. |