Rediscovering the “Human” in strategic human capital

While the field of strategic human capital (SHC) was created as a platform for dialogue between economics-based strategy researchers and psychology-based human resources (HR) researchers, it has increasingly become dominated by the economics-based logic. This paper argues that while such logic is not wrong, it is incomplete. By ignoring aspects of human nature such as free will, identity, meaning/purpose, community, and intrinsic value, it has unnecessarily limited the phenomenon to be studied and the research questions to be asked. I describe these concepts and how they might expand the SHC literature's view of determinants of employees' behavior, particularly their choices to invest in human capital. Finally, I discuss implications for research questions that might bridge the economics and psychology perspectives.