Revealing the question marks in the 'Black Box'

Using Barney's (1991) Resource-Based View (RBV) and the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework (Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg & Kalleberg, 2000) as theoretical foundations, this paper examines human capital as a mediator to the relationship between a system of HRM practices and individual level performance outcomes. The 'Black Box' phenomenon with human capital as mediator is a very relevant issue (Wright &McMahan, 2011) in trying to explain how HRM practices do not only add value to the performance equation, but can also show how employees can impact the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage. This study examines the 'established relationship' between HRM practices and performance outcomes (Becker & Gerhart, 1996). It distinguishes itself in two ways from previous empirical work; in the first place because individual performance outcomes are examined and secondly because both context-generic and context-specific human capital are examined in the role of mediator. Thirteen hypotheses have been tested on a sample set of 5499 employees belonging to a large, multinational company.

Autorentext

In 2012 Juliette Buiter graduated cum laude from Tilburg University (the Netherlands) with an MSc. in Human Resource Studies and Master certificate in Entrepreneurship. Today Juliette remains interested in academia and works in Switzerland for a large MNC within the CoE People & Organizational Development.