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This study aims to investigate the key roles of human and relational capital in the export orientation and competitiveness of knowledge-intensive cooperative companies. It is also aimed to examine the moderating role of marketing knowledge capabilities.

Data from 552 managers at 86 companies, selected from knowledge-intensive export cooperatives, were analyzed with structural equation modeling with the partial least squares approach.

Results indicate that both human and relational capital exert considerable effects on competitiveness. Export orientation was a driving factor for cooperatives’ competitiveness. Human and relational capital fostered the effects of export orientation on competitiveness. Moreover, marketing knowledge capabilities were found to moderate the relationships between human and relational capital and export orientation, as well as between export orientation and competitiveness.

By highlighting the role of human capital and relational capital in export orientation and competitiveness, this study offers an analysis of important managerial processes within cooperative companies, which have not been sufficiently addressed in previous research. This research also demonstrated the moderating role of marketing knowledge capabilities in strengthening relationships between human and relational capital and export orientation, as well as between export orientation and competitiveness, which has been neglected in previous studies. These findings provide academics and practitioners with a new framework for examining the relationships between these constructs, which will enable them to establish strategies for achieving a competitive advantage.

As cyber-attacks continue to grow, organisations adopting the internet-of-things (IoT) have continued to react to security concerns that threaten their businesses within the current highly competitive environment. Many recorded industrial cyber-attacks have successfully beaten technical security solutions by exploiting human-factor vulnerabilities related to security knowledge and skills and manipulating human elements into inadvertently conveying access to critical industrial assets. Knowledge and skill capabilities contribute to human analytical proficiencies for enhanced cybersecurity readiness. Thus, a human-factored security endeavour is required to investigate the capabilities of the human constituents (workforce) to appropriately recognise and respond to cyber intrusion events within the industrial control system (ICS) environment.

A quantitative approach (statistical analysis) is adopted to provide an approach to quantify the potential cybersecurity capability aptitudes of industrial human actors, identify the least security-capable workforce in the operational domain with the greatest susceptibility likelihood to cyber-attacks (i.e. weakest link) and guide the enhancement of security assurance. To support these objectives, a Human-factored Cyber Security Capability Evaluation approach is presented using conceptual analysis techniques.

Using a test scenario, the approach demonstrates the capacity to proffer an efficient evaluation of workforce security knowledge and skills capabilities and the identification of weakest link in the workforce.

The approach can enable organisations to gain better workforce security perspectives like security-consciousness, alertness and response aptitudes, thus guiding organisations into adopting strategic means of appropriating security remediation outlines, scopes and resources without undue wastes or redundancies.

This paper demonstrates originality by providing a framework and computational approach for characterising and quantify human-factor security capabilities based on security knowledge and security skills. It also supports the identification of potential security weakest links amongst an evaluated industrial workforce (human agents), some key security susceptibility areas and relevant control interventions. The model and validation results demonstrate the application of action research. This paper demonstrates originality by illustrating how action research can be applied within socio-technical dimensions to solve recurrent and dynamic problems related to industrial environment cyber security improvement. It provides value by demonstrating how theoretical security knowledge (awareness) and practical security skills can help resolve cyber security response and control uncertainties within industrial organisations.

The paper aims to examine the relationship between creating capabilities and political liberalism. It argues that the reality of climate change calls for the capabilities approach to be more rooted in a relational anthropology which the Aristotelian ethical tradition is more akin to.

It discusses how traces of this ethical tradition can be found in Nussbaum's capabilities approach itself: affiliation as an architectonic capability leads to the common good being the end of political action, and practical reason as an architectonic capability leads to reasoning being structured by concerns for the common good.

The paper suggests some practical implications of an Aristotelian version of the capabilities approach.

The paper seeks to build an account of social justice based on the capabilities approach with Aristotelian roots.

This study examines the effect of human and technological resource bundling on the financial and non-financial performance of third-party logistics (3PL) firms in India.

For achieving the research aim, 248 practitioners from India based 3PL firms were surveyed. The relationships between human and technology resources and firm performance were examined using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The results of empirical tests revealed that human and technological resources significantly enhance the performance of the 3PL firm. However, the firm's logistic capabilities related to track and trace, order management and final assembly do not mediate this relationship.

This study contributes by examining resource bundling in India's 3PL industry using empirical data and providing knowledge of the relationship between resources and business performance. It guides managers to consciously develop resource capabilities that influence firm performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of emerging market professional service small and medium-sized enterprises’ (PSF SME) internal competencies and capabilities on their ability to establish relationship value among clients and achieve superior financial performance. This study addresses the paucity of research on emerging market PSF SMEs and their ability to build value for their clients.

Data were collected from 251 senior managers or owners of PSF SMEs who were from an emerging market economy but had operations in various foreign markets. The two-step structural equation modeling procedure was used to analyze the data and investigate the hypothesized relationships.

The results show the positive impacts of the PSF SME’s human capital on innovativeness, service capabilities and relationship value. Human capital also had indirect positive impacts on relationship value and financial performance. Service capabilities were found to have a positive impact on relationship value and financial performance. In addition, innovativeness was found to have a positive impact on financial performance.

Emerging market PSF SMEs can gain competitive advantages and build solid long-term relationships with clients in the global marketplace when they focus on strengthening their human capital resources and successfully leveraging their innovativeness and service capabilities.

The study fills a gap in international business and management literature by offering guidance on how emerging market PSF SMEs can effectively use their internal resources and capabilities to build solid relationships with clients, deliver superior services and achieve global marketplace success.

The human development and capability approach (HDCA) and its associated participatory method is receiving growing attention as a useful conceptual development for comparative international education. HDCA challenges the economism so prevalent in world development thinking and, instead, looks at development as a process of enhancing persons’ incrementally achieved substantive freedoms from deprivations. The centrality of the person replaces the centrality of income growth.

The application of HDCA to the study of the role of education that promotes social justice change is illustrated by using an empowerment-capability framework to the long-term study of the benefits of village schooling for rural girls in western China.

Using HDCA to identify influences on social change, we derive a much more nuanced and valuable multi-dimensional view of human development, which enables us to draw broad implications for more effective policy. National policies should use a multi-dimensional informational base including equality, sustainability, and non-market dimensions of well-being as well as market production.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the special issue of the International Journal of Manpower on capabilities, work and human resource policies and practices. After presenting the main concepts of the capability approach, inspired by Amartya Sen's work, the paper goes on to review the major findings of the contributions to this issue.

Bringing together economists and sociologists, the special issue develops a relevant range of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The special issue adopts the capability approach as a yardstick to assess corporate policies from the combined perspective of economic and human development. It asks how firms can contribute to developing sustainable human capabilities at work.

Human resource management is mainly oriented towards optimising workers’ labour for the benefit of employers and shareholders. The papers in this issue provide some well‐documented suggestions on how to break with a reductionist understanding of employees as “human capital”, considered from the sole viewpoint of economic efficiency, by introducing a shift in perspective towards an integrated approach, embracing both economic and human development.

In the current study based on the resource-based view (RBV), a three-way interaction model tests the relationships among human and social capital resources, innovation orientation (IO) and innovation capability in the context of new ventures.

Hierarchical linear regression modeling presents the linear relations at two decision layers of start-ups, their founders and managers. Data is collected and analyzed from 233 new ventures in Turkey.

Findings of the two and three-way interaction analyses indicate a positive relationship between human capital and innovation capability when social capital and IO are high; however, the relation turns off when low.

The study extends the previous works on the proposed link between intellectual capital (IC) resources and innovation, by confirming the moderating role of social capital and IO on the positive association between human capital resources and innovation capability.

The results show that for start-up companies, the co-existence of strong social capital and the strategic orientation towards innovation is required for the effective utilization of human capital for generating innovation capability within the organization. Thus, this study highlights the importance of networks, alliances and social relationships, together with the unification of strategic thinking, organizational learning and a culture of innovation for attaining innovation goals, which are crucial for the survival and success of these units.

This study presents the first model in the literature which examines the moderating effects of IO and social capital on the human capital-innovation capability relationship.

This article aims to contribute to the literature linking the three pillars of sustainable development with the human development field. To do so, it analyzes how a group of stakeholders that participate in collective action for nature governance in Segre–Rialb, Catalonia, build collective capabilities and reconcile a holistic sustainable development with human development and collective well-being. The analysis is performed using nature governance and the capability approach theories. In particular, the framework providing the lenses to examine the collective action for nature governance is based on Elinor Ostrom's Institutional and Analysis framework and the collective capabilities concept.

The study is based on documental analysis (legal document namely and online resources available in Catalonian website) and a few online interviews since all fieldwork was canceled due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The case study reveals that collective action for nature governance has a twofold function: it materializes holistic sustainability and produces capabilities, reconciling sustainable and human development. Therefore, the research proves that people who work together to govern nature can boost a holistic perspective of sustainability and reconcile sustainable and human development.

First, this work aims to reconcile sustainable and human development fields that have been usually separated in academia, contributing to the research body that has attempted to relate human development and sustainability. This analysis uses a holistic perspective of sustainability, including the social, economic and environmental aspects connecting them to human development; this was not deeply explored before. Finally, the rigorous documental analysis, namely legal texts that allow reaching conclusions, is relevant since all fieldworks were canceled in 2021.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate different types of investment actions undertaken by entrepreneurial firms to determine how these actions influence performance. Specifically, the effects of entrepreneurial action with regards to investments in human capital, the capabilities of the firm and the competitive dynamics of the business relative to other firms are examined. These actions are examined in conjunction with the offering of products, services or both, to determine the benefits of specific actions for firms.

The sample is taken from the confidential version of the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS). The data are analyzed using a fixed effects model.

Results show that investment in human capital development actions and capability development actions improve firm performance. Further, investment in human capital development actions is shown to have the largest positive impact on the performance of firms that offer products only. Competitive positions actions have the greatest positive impact on firms that offer products and services.

Results contribute to multiple theoretical lenses within the context of entrepreneurship and demonstrate applicability of theory related to entrepreneurial action to other established theories. Findings also demonstrate that different entrepreneurial actions benefit firms that offer products or services in different ways. Limitations of the study are those associated with survey research generally, such as self-reported measures, non-response bias and the KFS specifically such as survivorship bias and variance in survey items across years.

The consideration of firms whose primary focus is the selling of products compared to services and how they moderate specific actions is novel and valuable. Theoretical development tying human capital, competitive dynamics and dynamic capabilities to entrepreneurial action creates new avenues for inquiry.