Strategic Resources at the Interface: Integrating Human Capital and Social Capital in Firms

Strategic human capital scholars have started to recognize the role that social capital plays in realizing the potential value of human capital resources to the firm. Despite this acknowledgement, theory explicitly linking human capital and social capital is scarce in the extant management literature. Therefore, the purpose of the current manuscript is to explain how these two intangible and often difficult to measure resources integrate to impact firm outcomes. I introduce a theoretical model that captures the association between human and social capital at multiple levels within the firm as well as across firms. Further, I explain several propositions with respect to how social capital enables human capital development and deployment through increased motivation or access to opportunities. I examine social capital as an attractor and identifier of individual human capital for the firm, a lens to view firm context through that shapes subsequent resource deployment, a substitute or complement to human cap...