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The purpose of this paper is explore an organizational design that allows firms to invest in transferable strategic human capital. Strategic human capital requires considerable investment in training costs, effective compensation, opportunities for professional development and expectancy of long employment relationship within a firm. A firm can undertake investment in strategic knowledge and workers can engage in learning only in these circumstances. However, there are a number of risks that are associated with investment in strategic human capital within a firm. In this paper, the author argues that providing strategic human capital to other firms within alliances could be a strategy for leveraging resource. Strategic knowledge facilitates transactions between firms possessing co-specialized human capital and tangible resources. Organizational design of an alliance based on co-specialization allows to balance costs and returns for the human capital supplier, as well as for beneficiary and workers. Within an alliance, the human capital supplier provides workers to a beneficiary firm and coordinates their activities. Supplier specialized in human capital investment ensures improved performance, productivity and efficiency of workers. Possibility to form a greater pool of labor force and to centralize training allows optimizing cost and sharing risks associated with investment activity among alliance participants. Human resource practices in an alliance system foster long-term employment relationship. Entering an alliance increases number of job positions, professional development opportunities through horizontal mobility, promotion and learning opportunities for workers. Finally, alliances allow leveraging investment in human capital beyond a single organization.

This paper conceptualizes the use of alliance based on co-specialization as a strategy to optimize investment in strategic human capital resource. It draws upon the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1995) and transaction cost theory (Coase, 1937; Williamson, 1981) to examine an alliance as a strategy for leveraging the human capital resources for accessing new markets, building reputation and sharing the risks across more than one organization.

First, the paper reviews the theoretical literature on human capital as a strategic resource (Becker, 1962; Coff, 1997), its sourcing on internal and external labor markets and respective employment systems (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). Second, it focuses on the features of human capital resource (Barney, 1986; Chi, 1994; Doz and Hamel, 1998). Third, it conceptualizes the use of alliances based on co-specialization as organizational structures for investment in human capital across organizations and examines respective employment system and HR practices (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). As result, the author argues that an alliance can be an alternative mean to optimize returns on investment in human capital with strategic transferable knowledge. By consequence, the author describes an alliance employment system and illustrates the arguments with a case of human capital trading in a co-specialization alliance under a long-term management contract in the luxury hotel industry.

This paper discusses collaborative ventures as a sourcing strategy of the human capital. An alliance strategy is relevant for sourcing the strategic human capital resources. Human capital resource can be accessed by firms through transfer of skills and organizational routines within collaborative agreements, such as alliances based on co-specialization. In this case, alliance is an organizational architecture between organizations that improves the efficiency and productivity, reduces marginal cost on training due to larger scale of operations and reduces risk by splitting investment in human capital and by offering more career and development opportunities for strategic knowledge workers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and explain the factors contributing to the observed differences in skill mismatches (vertical and horizontal) between natives and immigrants in EU countries.

Using microdata from the 2007 wave of the Adult Education Survey (AES), different probit models are specified and estimated to analyse differences in the probability of each type of skill mismatch between natives and immigrants. Yun’s decomposition method is used to identify the relative contribution of characteristics and returns to explain the differences between the two groups.

Immigrants are more likely to be skill mismatched than natives. The difference is much larger for vertical mismatch, wherein the difference is higher for immigrants coming from non-EU countries than for those coming from other EU countries. The authors find that immigrants from non-EU countries are less valued in EU labour markets than natives with similar characteristics – a result that is not observed for immigrants from EU countries. These results could be related to the limited transferability of human capital acquired in non-EU countries.

The findings suggest that specific programmes to adapt immigrants’ human capital acquired in the home country are required to reduce differences in the incidence of skill mismatch and better integration into EU labour markets.

This research is original, because it distinguishes between horizontal and vertical mismatch – an issue that has not been considered in the literature on differences between native and immigrant workers and due to the wide geographical scope of the analysis, which considers EU and non-EU countries.

The purpose of this paper is to break down south-north migration along both the skill and the occupational dimension and thus to distinguish and compare several types of south-north migration and brain drain.

This paper presents south-north migration rates by occupational category at two distinct levels of disaggregation according to International Standard Classification of Occupations 1988 (ISCO-88). The data sets combine information about the labor market outcomes of immigrants in Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries around the year 2000 provided by the Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries by the OECD with employment data for the developing migrant-sending countries from the International Labour Organization.

The incidence of south-north migration was highest among Professionals, one of the two occupational categories generally requiring tertiary education, and among clerks and legislators, senior officials and managers. At the more disaggregated level, physical, mathematical and engineering science (associate) professionals, life science and health (associate) professionals, as well as other (associate) professionals exhibited significantly larger brain drain rates than teaching (associate) professionals. The data also suggest non-negligible occupation-education mismatches due to the imperfect transferability of skills acquired through formal education because south-north migrants with a university degree worked more often in occupational categories requiring less than tertiary education compared to OECD natives. The employment shares of most types of professionals and technicians and associate professionals, as well as of clerks and corporate managers were significantly smaller in the migrant-sending countries compared to the receiving countries.

The constructed data sets constitute the first comprehensive data sets on south-north migration by ISCO-88 major and sub-major occupational category for cross-sections of, respectively, 91 and 17 developing countries of emigration.

Firm-specific human capital (FSHC) has been an integral part of the vocabulary in the strategy field. Many scholars argue that FSHC inhibits employee mobility and drives employee retention at a discount, value appropriation, and firms' competitive advantage. FSHC also plays a central role in the resource-based view of the firm. In recent years, however, a significant debate has emerged on the validity and usefulness of the construct. The purpose of the chapter is to revisit this debate and discuss both challenges and opportunities related to FSHC. In a form of conversation, we take aim at FSHC from different angles and discuss its role as a mobility friction, in value appropriation of established firms, in the context of transitions between paid employment and entrepreneurship, and in the views of practitioners. While we agree that our understanding of the concept of FSHC must evolve, we continue to see its value in our theoretical toolbox.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how prejudice in a post-migration labor market can be mitigated, specifically, whether education received in the host country can serve as a signal of social integration for immigrant workers in employment settings.

The authors conducted an audit discrimination study, using an experimental setup to examine the interplay between prejudice and education as a signal of the social integration of immigrants in employment settings.

The results of the study indicate that signals of social integration, such as, qualifications acquired in the host country through education, counter prejudice against Polish immigrants in Iceland.

The study provides evidence that immigrants are subjected to prejudice that can restrain their employment opportunities. The acquisition of education in the host country can mitigate this effect, but also diminishes the line between social integration and assimilation. However, the study is limited by a relatively small sample size and a single-country context.

The study offers insights for both countries and organizations worldwide that are facing the need to successfully embrace a mobile workforce and the challenge of a diverse workforce composition.

The study addresses the under-researched effects of education on human capital transferability in the host labor market. More specifically, it uncovers that the differentiation between education acquired in the home country and education acquired in the host country is a signal that can mitigate prejudice and its effects on the employment of immigrants in the host countries.

Introduces the special issue “Human resource development: sectoral and invention‐level evidence of human capital accumulation”. Reviews the concepts and definitions of intellectual and human capital. Considers human capital from individual (employability, performance and career development) and organization (investment, ownership, skills and knowledge management) perspectives. Looks at each of the papers in the special issue, relating them to its theme. Highlights the implications for human resource development, both at individual and organizational levels.

Given the importance of technology in competitive advantage, this paper seeks to better understand the factors associated with entrepreneurs' decision to incorporate innovative technologies in new ventures. It aims to explore three questions: “Are the reasons given for starting technologically innovative new ventures (TINVs) different from those given for starting ventures based on traditional technologies?”; “What is the role of human capital in the TINV startup decision?”; and “Do gender differences exist in the reasons and human capital associated with starting a TINV?”.

Data were obtained from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II (PSED II), which is a national database of individuals in various stages of starting a business. The overall sample consisted of 950 individuals. Non‐parametric methods and logistic regressions were used to test hypotheses.

Results show that men start the TINV for self‐realization reasons, and that wealth seeking and employment reasons are negatively associated with the technology startup decision among women, but not among men. Human capital positively predicts the decision to start TINV, but gender differences exist as well: specific human capital (industry and occupational background) positively predicts the technology startup decision among men, whereas general human capital (education and employment breadth) positively predicts the decision among women.

Better understanding of the factors that motivate and encourage entrepreneurs to utilize innovative technologies is useful for policymakers, practitioners, and educators. This understanding can help when allocating resources for the purpose of encouraging innovation and when trying to train entrepreneurs to enhance competitiveness of new ventures.

The study highlights some of the factors associated with the decision to start firms that are technologically innovative. Given that incorporating technology in new venture is often considered a key factor in sustainability and long term competitive advantage, the study provides possible explanations for potential sources of competitive advantage. Implications for the role of motives and human capital in the startup decision and in the decision to incorporate technology are discussed, with specific reference for male and female owned business.

Knowledge management literature highlights the fact that, in the new economy, the achievement of a sustained competitive advantage depends on firm’s capacity to develop and deploy its knowledge‐based resources. However, not all resources are equally important for the achievement of this competitive edge. In this sense, this paper proposes an integrative framework for the analysis of human capital combining the advances from three different areas of research: knowledge management, intellectual capital, and strategic human resource management. Juxtaposing two dimensions – value and uniqueness – it analyzes the different forms of firm’s human capital. These are the following: idiosyncratic, ancillary, core and compulsory. Furthermore different human resources practices that should be used to manage such specific forms of human capital are described.

The employer brand is a crucial intangible asset for companies as it enhances the employer–employee relationship, leading to improved employee performance and overall company outcomes. This paper aims to investigate the contribution of the employer brand to the financial results of companies in southern Europe.

The sample consists of 266 companies operating in southern European countries during the year 2020. Secondary data on employer brand attributes, assessed from the perspective of current employees, were collected from the Glassdoor platform. Financial indicators were obtained from the companies' annual financial reports. The research hypotheses were tested using regression analysis.

The results of the regression analysis support the notion that the employer brand contributes to profitability indicators and management effectiveness indicators of southern European companies. However, the study did not find evidence supporting the contribution of the employer brand to market indicators and financial structure indicators of the observed companies.

This study is one of the first empirical investigations to assess the role of the employer brand as a human capital tool for enhancing the financial performance of companies in southern Europe. The study examines employer brand attributes from the perspective of current employees, who actively participate in shaping the employer brand and the company's image. In contrast to prior research, this study incorporates a more extensive set of financial indicators, categorized into four groups: profitability indicators, management effectiveness indicators, market indicators and financial structure indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of mobility on the apprentices’ wages.

Using a French longitudinal survey concerned with young people’s entry into the labor market and their subsequent employment trajectories, this paper estimates the impact of mobility on post-apprenticeship wages correcting for different selection bias.

Mobility is both voluntary and enforced. It combines imposed selection mechanisms and more active match searching behaviors on the part of apprentices. Apprentices who change employer do not have significant lower starting wages than those who remain in their training firms. Nevertheless, in the medium term, those who defer their moves tend to benefit more from their mobility. Those who move immediately see their wage rising less sharply.

The findings indicate that policy makers should be concerned with job mobility at the end of the apprenticeship contract. Manpower policies should focus on measures that enhance the transferability of accumulated skills and the acquisition of new skills by apprentices.

To the author’ best knowledge, this is the first paper studying the effect of mobility on apprentices’ wages in a dynamic perspective and correcting for the selection of different categories of mobility (immediate vs deferred mobility).