Empirical opportunities for advancing theory and research on strategic human capital

Abstract

The strategic human capital conversation is a vibrant research area with many empirical opportunities. In this short editorial, we describe four key research areas that would benefit from empirical advancements: (1) perceptions of mobility prospects and firm-specific human capital theory, (2) firm-specific incentives, (3) emergence of the unit-level human capital resource, and (4) value creation and value capture issues in human capital research. We describe opportunities to validate certain measures, improve existing measures, develop new measures, and replicate initial findings.