Human capital resource emergence and leadership

Abstract

Summary Drawing on multilevel theory of human capital resource emergence (HCRE), this paper reviews existing empirical research to better understand the effect of leadership on this emergence process. Specifically, we summarize the current literature pertaining to how leaders may impact the process through which individual‐level human capital—the knowledge, skills, and abilities of individuals—emerges into a valuable unit‐level human capital resource. We review 132 empirical articles and examine how leadership research on task‐ and relational‐oriented factors at different levels of analysis affects the important task and social environment enabling factors of HCRE. Our paper makes important progress towards integrating leadership research with extant theorizing on HCRE and identifies areas in both literatures where additional research is needed.