The emergence of human capital: Roles of social capital and coordination that drive unit performance

• Date: 01 April 2019
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Author: Patrick M. Wright,Christopher M. Harris,Gary C. McMahan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12212

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The emergence of human capital: Roles of social

capital and coordination that drive unit

performance

Christopher M. Harris

1

|Patrick M. Wright

2

|Gary C. McMahan

3

1

College of Business, Texas Woman's

University, Denton, Texas, USA

2

Darla Moore School of Business, University of

South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

3

College of Business Administration,

University of Texas Arlington, Arlington,

Texas, USA

Correspondence

Christopher M. Harris, College of Business,

Texas Woman's University, 1200 Frame

Street, Denton, TX 76204, USA.

Email: charris17@twu.edu

Abstract

Empirical work on human capital has tended to focus on the

direct effects of human capital on performance, whereas

little attention has been paid to behaviours through which

human capital influences performance. This study uses the

“human capital emergence”model to examine relationships

among human capital, social capital, coordination, and

performance over a 2‐year period of time. Findings indicate

that human capital, social capital, and coordination each

influence performance. Human capital and social capital

also positively predict coordination. Lastly, coordination

mediates the relationships between human capital and

performance and social capital and performance.

KEYWORDS

coordination, human capital, performance, social capital

1|INTRODUCTION

Human resources comprise the pool of human capital under a firm's control in direct employment relationships

(Wright, McMahan, & McWilliams, 1994). It is this construct of human capital that has elicited considerable interest

among both strategy and human resource researchers (Hitt, Bierman, Shimizu, & Kochhar, 2001; Takeuchi, Lepak,

Wang, & Takeuchi, 2007). This has been more salient recently with the emergence of strategic human capital (Wright,

Coff, & Moliterno, 2014).

Strategic human capital focuses on the valuable characteristics of people that can provide a strategic resource to

the firm. Much of this research has focused on the aggregated human capital of a firm (Ployhart, Van Iddekinge, &

Mackenzie, 2011; Ployhart, Weekley, & Ramsey, 2009). While aggregated human capital characteristics are

important, Ployhart and Moliterno (2011) noted that an organisational level human capital resource requires a

process of emergence in order to be effective. They referred human capital as a “unit‐level resource that is created

from the emergence of individuals' knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs).”Such emergence

Received: 29 August 2017 Revised: 6 July 2018 Accepted: 4 August 2018

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12212

162 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;29:162–180.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj

focuses researchers' attention on social processes (i.e., behaviours) occurring between and among the individuals

necessary to create a higher order human capital construct. However, these emergence processes have remained

relatively untested.

Ployhart and Moliterno (2011) indicated that the complexity of a unit's task environment (e.g., interdependence)

and emergence enabling states, including behaviours, are two components that contribute to human capital

emergence. For example, the authors indicated when a unit's tasks are highly interdependent, then a greater

amount of coordination behaviours are needed among the members of the unit. Therefore, when tasks are highly

interdependent and require a high degree of coordination behaviours, then human capital emergence is more

important to unit performance (Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011). In order to study the emergence of human capital,

we use a sample of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's basketball teams. Examining basketball

teams is an ideal context in which to study human capital emergence because basketball is a highly interdependent

task which requires members of each team to coordinate their behaviours. A highly interdependent task context

which requires a high degree of coordination is theorised to be an optimal situation for human capital emergence

(Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011); therefore, basketball teams provide a context in which to empirically examine how

human capital can influence coordination behaviours and team performance.

The human capital emergence model provides a framework for how individual human capital can be aggregated;

however, there are some concerns and challenges with examining human capital emergence. For example, there are

measurement challenges with assessing human capital at an individual level and then aggregating to the unit and/or

organisational level (Wright & McMahan, 2011). In typical businesses, it is extremely difficult to assess each

employee's individual level human capital and then aggregate to a higher level. Additionally, it is difficult to determine

exactly how employees work together and which employees actually work together on tasks. Another challenge is

measuring and testing the emergence enabling states. In typical businesses, it may be difficult to determine which

emergence enabling states are present and then being able to collect data to assess the emergence enabling states.

One way to test behavioural emergence enabling states is to treat them as a mediator. Wright et al. (1994) indicated

that human capital can only impact organisational performance to the extent that the owners of the human capital

allow the organisation to benefit through their behaviours. This indicates that behaviours may act as a mediator

between human capital and performance. It is important to examine behaviours as a mediator to the relationship

between human capital and performance because it shows that human capital is being used to exhibit the behaviours

that lead to performance. One other challenge with human capital emergence is the social context of human capital,

while the social context is mentioned by Ployhart and Moliterno (2011), Wright and McMahan (2011) place a greater

emphasis on the social context in that the relationships within a unit can influence the behaviours of unit members.

For example, when tasks are highly interdependent, the social context can influence the coordination of unit

members. Therefore, the combination of human capital and social capital are important when studying the behaviours

and performance of a unit or organisation (Wright & McMahan, 2011).

Our use of basketball teams in this study allows us to address some of the concerns listed above with examining

human capital emergence in typical business settings. Basketball is an interdependent task; therefore, the task

complexity needed for human capital emergence is in place. Additionally, standardised individual player hu man capital

ratingsallow for human capitalto be assessed at the individual leveland then aggregatedto the team level. An objective

measure of coordination that is the same across all teams is also available to assess behaviours, and standardised

performance measuresacross teams are also available. Finally, we are able to include thesocial context by assessing the

number of seasons playershave played together on the same team. Taking all of this together, NCAA men's basketball

teamsallow us to examineboth humancapital and socialcapital andtheir influenceon team coordinationand performance.

The goal of our study is to advance strategic human capital research not only to consider the direct effects of

human capital and social capital on performance but also to consider the emergence process and behaviours as

potential mediators to the effects of human capital and social capital on performance. We build on and extend prior

research in this area. For example, Harris, McMahan, and Wright (2012) attempted to explore the independent

effects of human capital and a precursor to social capital (the time individuals had worked together) with a sample

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