The Human Resource Architecture: Toward a Theory of Human Capital Allocation and Development

Abstract

Recognizing, that not all employees possess knowledge and skills that are of equal strategic importance, we draw on the resource-based view of the firm, human capital theory, and transaction cost economics to develop a human resource architecture of four different employment modes: internal development, acquisition, contracting, and alliance. We use this architecture to derive research questions for studying the relationships among employment modes, employment relationships, human resource configurations, and criteria for competitive advantage.