The Strategic Development and Deployment of Human Cultural Capital Resources

Abstract

Through a variety of tactics, such as the use of celebrity endorsements, firms use the images of people to strengthen firm capabilities. However, the human capital resources (HCR) literature curiously excludes this source of competitive advantage. Indeed, the HCR literature usefully explains how the knowledge, skills, abilities and other intrinsic attributes (KSAOs) of people enhance firm capabilities to create and appropriate value, but because the value of human cultural capital depends on audiences culturally bestowing attention and meaning on people, the HCR literature explicitly excludes human cultural capital from the definition of human capital. Further, theory of how firms use cultural capital to support widely recognized strategies for market positioning, timing, and diversification is underdeveloped. I address this inconsistency in the HCR literature by recognizing the complementary concept of human cultural capital resources (HCCR), which provides a generalizable theoretical touchstone for research on narrower topics, like celebrity endorsements and brand ambassadors. Mirroring the distinction between HCR and human capital, I define HCCR as the interaction between human cultural capital and the other resources and capabilities that underpin firm strategy. I argue that the mechanistic influence of human cultural capital operates through rhetoric. Further, I suggest that human cultural capital has two primary components – salience and legitimacy – and these two components are themselves each composed of two components – distinctiveness and recognizability, and technical and ethical legitimacy. Using these components, I develop a set of baseline propositions about the optimal sourcing and deployment of human cultural capital across widely recognized strategies.