Innovation Brief - Silver Bullet: Learning to Manage Human Capital (PDF).

Presented by Preeta M. Banerjee
International Business School, Assistant Professor of Strategy

Executive Summary

While human capital may be valuable, it can also be costly and difficult to both acquire and retain. As sociologist Howard Aldrich writes, “[most firms] can’t always get what they want, and certainly don’t always get what they need.” The issues of resource and time constraints are significantly exacerbated in emerging economies where human resource management and human capital development practices are still evolving. Due to resource and time constraints, many entrepreneurial firms use bricolage (“making do with what is on hand”). Bricolage is particularly important for new technology ventures, where the resource on hand is the technological skills of employees. Human asset evaluation – knowing what the firm has on hand – is the first step to employing human capital bricolage as a means to overcome human capital constraints.