The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital
Edited by Alan Burton‐Jones and J.‐C. Spender
Abstract
The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital provides an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up-to-date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications of human capital. Macroeconomic research on human capital – the stock of human capabilities and knowledge – has been extensively published but, until now, the literature had lacked a comprehensive analysis of human capital within the organization. Specially commissioned contributions from over forty 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. The book provides 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.
Keywords:
macroeconomic research,
human capabilities,
human knowledge,
organizations,
economy,
management frameworks,
performance,
industry,
employment relations,
government
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Print Publication Date:
- Jan 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199532162
- Published online:
- May 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199532162.001.0001
Editors
Alan Burton‐Jones,
editor
Alan Burton-Jones heads an international management consultancy practice headquartered in Australia and is a senior visiting lecturer at New South Wales, Griffith and Bond Universities. His academic research focuses on the role of knowledge in organizations and the links between strategy, intellectual resources and organizational effectiveness. He is the author of Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work and Learning in the New Economy (Oxford University Press, (1999) (Nikkei 2002) and his writings have also been published in a number of leading international journals. He contributed to the Australian government report on the knowledge-based economy in APEC countries (DISR 2000) ,the first national Knowledge Management Framework published by Standards Australia and the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Learning and Knowledge Management Council (pan-Pacific industry forum).
J.‐C. Spender,
editor
J.-C. Spender holds a PhD in Corporate Strategy from Manchester Business School. He retired from the Deanship of the School of Business and Technology at SUNY/FIT in New York in 2003 and has since been researching the theory of the firm and the history of business education. He holds Visiting Professorships at ESADE, Lund University, and University Campus, Suffolk. His books include Locke, Robert R., and Spender, J.-C. (2011), Confronting Managerialism: How the Business Elite and Their Schools Threw Our Lives Out of Balance, London: Zed Books; and Burton-Jones, Alan, and Spender, J.-C. (eds.) (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
