Showing papers on "Human capital published in 2016"

Human Capital and Entrepreneurship Research: A Critical Review and Future Directions:

Abstract: Human capital has emerged as a highly utilized theoretical lens through which scholars can better understand entrepreneurship. To synthesize the progress of this stream and promote its use, we review 109 articles in leading management and entrepreneurship journals over two decades. We organize our discussion in terms of multi-theory approaches, methods and analyses, constructs, and study focus. A number of research gaps and promising areas for inquiry are put forward. We develop a typology of human capital and discuss how future investigations of types of human capital related to the entrepreneurship process can benefit research and practice.

Are Foreign Investors Locusts? The Long-Term Effects of Foreign Institutional Ownership

Abstract: This paper challenges the view that foreign investors lead firms to adopt a short-term orientation and forgo long-term investment. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed firms in 30 countries over the period 2001-2010, we find instead that greater foreign institutional ownership fosters long-term investment in tangible, intangible, and human capital. Foreign institutional ownership also leads to significant increases in innovation output. We identify these effects by exploiting the exogenous variation in foreign institutional ownership that follows the addition of a stock to the MSCI indexes. Our results suggest that foreign institutions exert a disciplinary role on entrenched corporate insiders worldwide.

The risk of automation for jobs in OECD countries: a comparative analysis

Abstract: "In recent years, there has been a revival of concerns that automation and digitalisation might after all result in a jobless future. The debate has been fuelled by studies for the US and Europe arguing that a substantial share of jobs is at "risk of computerisation". These studies follow an occupation-based approach proposed by Frey and Osborne (2013), i.e. they assume that whole occupations rather than single job-tasks are automated by technology. As we argue, this might lead to an overestimation of job automatibility, as occupations labelled as high-risk occupations often still contain a substantial share of tasks that are hard to automate. Our paper serves two purposes. Firstly, we estimate the job automatibility of jobs for 21 OECD countries based on a task-based approach. In contrast to other studies, we take into account the heterogeneity of workers’ tasks within occupations. Overall, we find that, on average across the 21 OECD countries, 9 % of jobs are automatable. The threat from technological advances thus seems much less pronounced compared to the occupation-based approach. We further find heterogeneities across OECD countries. For instance, while the share of automatable jobs is 6 % in Korea, the corresponding share is 12 % in Austria. Differences between countries may reflect general differences in workplace organisation, differences in previous investments into automation technologies as well as differences in the education of workers across countries."

Global Talent Flows

Abstract: The global distribution of talent is highly skewed and the resources available to countries to develop and utilize their best and brightest vary substantially. The migration of skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further. Using newly available data, the paper first reviews the landscape of global talent mobility, which is both asymmetric and rising in importance. Next, the determinants of global talent flows at the individual and firm levels are presented and some important implications are sketched. Third, the national gatekeepers for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches used to select migrants for admission are reviewed. Looking forward, the capacity of people, firms, and countries to successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will be critical to their success.

Labor-labor substitution and their implications for policy*

Abstract: A critical synthesis of the rapidly growing literature on substitution among labor force aggregates is presented. Despite the large number of studies now available, the only firm conclusions are: (1) Physical and human capital are complements and are jointly substitutable with raw labor. This has implications for policies that subsidize the wage costs of low-wage workers. (2) Young workers' own-wage elasticity of demand exceeds unity, but the degree to which they are substitutes for older workers is unclear. The paper suggests that future research should concentrate on substitution among workers disaggregated by age, education, or sex rather than by the bluecollar-white-collar distinction used in most work and that has little use in policy analysis.

The Middle-Income Trap: More Politics than Economics

Abstract: Economists have identified the existence of a middle-income (mi) trap but have yet to analyze the politics of this trap. The authors argue that countries in the mi trap face two major institutional and political challenges. First, the policies necessary to upgrade productivity—as in human capital and innovation—require enormous investment in institutional capacity. Second, these institutional challenges come at a time when political capacity for building these institutions is weak, due primarily to the fragmentation of potential support coalitions. Politics are stalled in particular by fractured social groups, especially business and labor, and more generally by inequality. These conditions result in large measure from previous trajectories of growth. The empirical analysis concentrates on nine of the larger mi countries.

Economic reforms and industrial policy in a panel of Chinese cities

Abstract: We study the effect of place-based industrial policy on economic development, focusing on the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in China. We use data from a panel of Chinese (prefecture-level) cities from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimation exploits the variation in the establishment of SEZ across time and space. We find that the establishment of a state-level SEZ is associated with an increase in the level of GDP of about 20 %. This finding is confirmed with alternative specifications and in a sub-sample of inland provinces, where the selection of cities to host the zones was based on administrative criteria. The main channel is a positive effect on physical capital accumulation, although SEZ also have a positive effect on total factor productivity and human capital investments. We also investigate whether there are spillover effects of SEZ on neighboring regions or cities further away. We find positive and often significant spillover effects.

Entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness: evidence from European entrepreneurial universities

Abstract: The interesting relationship between entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness has been a major focus of academics, university managers, and policy makers during the past decades—in particular the role of institutions in the establishment of political, social, and economic rules-. For example, since the enactment of the US Bayh–Dole Act more than 30 years ago, many American cities and regions are increasingly viewing universities as potential engines of economic growth. In these new socioeconomic scenarios, the role of entrepreneurial universities is not only generates/transfers knowledge but also contributes/provides leadership for the creation of entrepreneurial thinking, actions, and institutions. Previous studies have shown the university’s role in economic development, but no empirical study has analyzed the entrepreneurial activity generated by university students per university at the country/regional level of analysis. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the university’s entrepreneurial activity on regional competitiveness. Adopting the institutional economics and the endogenous growth approaches, a proposed conceptual framework was developed and tested with structural equation modeling using data from 102 universities located in 56 NUTS II of 12 European countries. Our results evidenced that informal factors (e.g., attitudes, role models) have a higher influence on university entrepreneurial activity than formal factors (e.g., support measures, education and training). Our results also evidenced a higher contribution of universities on regional competitiveness, in particular, when we used social measures (talent human capital) instead economic measures (GDP per capita).

Entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention: Do female students benefit?:

Abstract: This article explores links between entrepreneurship education (EE) participation, alertness and risk-taking skills and the intensity of entrepreneurial intention relating to becoming an entrepreneur. Guided by insights from human capital and socially learned stereotypes theories, we conceptualize and test novel hypotheses that consider the potential moderating effect of gender and participation in EE. Business students participating in EE modules were compared with engineering students excluded from such programmes. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that EE students reported high intensity of intention; however, EE did not generate equal benefits for all students. Women were significantly less likely to report high intensity of intention; however, those citing the alertness skill were more likely to report high intensity of intention than non-EE women students. Both male EE and non-EE students citing the risk perception skill reported higher intention, whereas women EE students citing the risk pe...

The geography of the economic crisis in Europe: National macroeconomic conditions, regional structural factors and short-term economic performance

Abstract: This paper explores the linkages between pre-2008 crisis national macro-economic conditions, regional resistance factors and depth of the crisis in the regions of the EU27. The results suggest that only a limited set of macro-economic factors shape the regional reaction to the crisis. A healthy current account surplus is associated with stronger economic performance during the post-2008 recession. Conversely, high public debt countries are more successful in sheltering their regional economies in the short-run. When looking at regional-level resistance, human capital is the single most important positive factor. Conversely, research and development-intensive regions are more exposed to negative shocks.

The European origins of economic development

Abstract: Although a large literature argues that European settlement outside of Europe during colonization had an enduring effect on economic development, researchers have been unable to assess these predictions directly because of an absence of data on colonial European settlement. We construct a new database on the European share of the population during colonization and examine its association with economic development today. We find a strong, positive relation between current income per capita and colonial European settlement that is robust to controlling for the current proportion of the population of European descent, as well as many other country characteristics. The results suggest that any adverse effects of extractive institutions associated with small European settlements were, even at low levels of colonial European settlement, more than offset by other things that Europeans brought, such as human capital and technology.

Managing intellectual capital through a collective intelligence approach: An integrated framework for universities

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a new framework for managing intellectual capital (IC) inside a university considering the collective intelligence perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The research method uses the fourth stage of IC research and adopts the collective intelligence approach. The underlying assumption behind the framework is to consider the university as a collective intelligence system in which the tangible and intellectual assets are coordinated towards the achievement of strategic goals. Findings – The conceptual framework for IC management harnesses the power of IC, collectively created by the engagement of multiple stakeholders inside the university network. The main components are the final goal of a university (what); the collective human capital to achieve the goal (who); the processes activated inside the university (how); and finally the motivations behind the achievement of the goal (why). Research limitations/implications – The research is exploratory and t...

Technology, Skill, and the Wage Structure: Insights from the Past

Abstract: Recent technological advances and a widening of the wage structure have led many to conclude that technology and human capital are relative complements. The possibility that such a relationship exists today has prompted a widely held conjecture that technology and skill have always been relative complements. According to this view, technological advance always serves to widen the wage structure, and only large injections of education slow its relentless course. A related literature demonstrates that capital and skill are relative complements today and in the recent past (Zvi Griliches, 1969). Thus capital deepening appears also to have increased the relative demand for the educated, serving further to stretch the wage structure. Physical capital and technology are now regarded as the relative complements of human capital, but have they been so for the past two centuries? Some answers have already been provided. A literature has emerged on the bias to technological change across history that challenges the view that physical capital and human capital have always been relative complements. Many of the major technological advances of the 19th century substituted physical capital, raw materials, and unskilled labor for highly skilled artisans (John A. James and Jonathan S. Skinner, 1985). But if physical capital and human skill were not always relative complements, when did they become so, and when did new technology become skilled labor's complement? We argue that capital-skill complementarity was manifested in the aggregate economy as particular technologies spread, specifically batch and continuous-process methods of production. Across the past two centuries, manufacturing shifted first from artisanal to mechanized and nonmechanized factory production, then from simple factories to assembly lines, and finally from assembly lines to continuous and batch processes. Although few products were manufactured by more than two of the technologies mentioned, manufacturing, as a whole, progressed in the fashion described. In considering our argument it is useful to envision manufacturing as having two distinct stages: (i) a machine-installation and machine-maintenance segment and (ii) a production or assembly portion. Capital and educated (skilled) labor, we will argue, are always complements in the machine-maintenance segment of manufacturing, regardless of the technology. Machinists, for example, are needed to install machinery and make it run. The workable capital created by skilled labor plus raw capital is then used by unskilled labor to create the final product in the production or assembly segment of manufacturing. How the adoption of a technology alters the relative demand for skilled workers will depend on whether the machinemaintenance demand for skilled labor is offset by the production-process demand for unskilled labor.

Productivity and Selection of Human Capital with Machine Learning

Abstract: Economists have become increasingly interested in studying the nature of production functions in social policy applications, with the goal of improving productivity. Traditionally models have assumed workers are homogenous inputs. However, in practice, substantial variability in productivity means the marginal productivity of labor depends substantially on which new workers are hired--which requires not an estimate of a causal effect, but rather a prediction. We demonstrate that there can be large social welfare gains from using machine learning tools to predict worker productivity, using data from two important applications - police hiring and teacher tenure decisions.

Do all elements of intellectual capital matter for organizational performance? Evidence from Russian context

Abstract: Purpose – Intellectual capital (IC) has been argued to be the key element of value creation in contemporary economies and this argument has been widely supported by empirical research, but mainly based on data from developed markets. The question of how IC and its elements work in other contexts remains under-researched and the limited empirical evidence that exists contradicts the conclusions drawn from developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight into the relationship between three main elements of IC (human, relational and structural) and organizational performance in the particular context of Russian manufacturing companies. Design/methodology/approach – The sample comprises 240 Russian manufacturing companies. The data are collected by survey using the scales already validated in the international context. The authors use a two-step analysis – factor and regression analyses – to answer the research questions. Findings – The findings demonstrate that structural and hu...

The Determinants of Green Product Innovation Performance

Abstract: This study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the positive effects of corporate environmental commitment and green human capital on green product innovation performance via the mediator: green adaptive ability Green adaptive ability is the capability to comply with uncertain environmental regulations and environmentalism This study tests the hypotheses in a sample of 136 of Taiwan's manufacturing companies The findings in this study highlight the importance of corporate environmental commitment and green human capital that are determinants of green adaptive ability to develop green product innovation The empirical results show corporate environmental commitment positively affects green product innovation performance directly and positively influences it indirectly via green adaptive ability Green human capital, however, does not affect green product innovation performance directly Green adaptive ability is a full mediator between green human capital and green product innovation performance but a partial mediator between corporate environmental commitment and green product innovation performance Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

HRM practices for human and social capital development: effects on innovation capabilities

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effect of systems of human resource management (HRM) practices on a company's innovation capabilities. To date, few studies have analyzed the way a firm may be more innovative by using specific sets of high-performance HRM practices from an intellectual capital-based view of the firm. From an extensive literature review, a model was established and tested through structural equation modelling, using the statistical technique of partial least squares. The study was applied to a sample of technological firms in Spain and the results show that high-profile personal HRM practices positively influence human capital while collaborative HRM practices influence social capital, which, in turn, affect innovation capabilities by means of, respectively, total and partial mediating effects. Managerial and HRM implications of these results are drawn by the authors, highlighting the idea of paying increased attention to managing firms with a focus on strategic intangible assets in order to gain c...