Human capital advantage: a determinant of organisational performance in the Hospitality sector

Abstract

The paper tests the hypothesis that attitudinal components of human capital lead to human capital advantage which becomes a determinant of firm performance and competitive advantage. The test was carried out by analysing employees‟ perceived agreement that if certain attitudinal human capital factors are favourable, their performance rises. Spearman‟s rho correlation coefficient calculated for employees‟ level of agreement and perceived performance was found to be 0.941. The results show high agreement to theoretical predictions and empirical researches in the literature. The work presented has profound implications for future studies of human capital as a source of superior competitive advantage and may help to solve the problems of low productivity and loss of profits due to close completion. The study also resulted in the postulate: the performance of people in organisations is directly proportional to attitudinal components of human capital. Thus p=kH+c where p is organisational performance, H are the attitudinal components of human capital, k is a constant of proportionality and c is basic employee performance. The study was set in the Hospitality sector in Cape Town, South Africa.

Keywords

• Human capital
• organisational performance
• job attitudes
• competitive advantage