The Relationship between Causal Ambiguity of Human Capital and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study for Real Estate Brokerage Firms

• Main Authors: CHEN, KAO-MAO, 陳高貌
• Other Authors: HUANG, YING-SHAN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/01351302924849302998

博士 === 國立臺北大學 === 企業管理學系 === 92 === With the advent of knowledge economy, human capital has become a vital endowment of firms in Taiwan. It’s also a critical input for the survival and growth of firms. After reviewing schools of thought, we find that the issues of human capital can be investigated through the aspects of contents, investments, functions and attributes. The study of attributes is mainly focused on the resource-based view（RBV）. Causal ambiguity, one of the most important sources that can’t be imitated, was selected among numerous attributes of resources in this research as the main study issue. After reviewing the literature and case study interviews, the relationship among sources of causal ambiguity（tacitness, specificity and complexity）, causal ambiguity and organizational performance was examined. A number of twenty-four hypotheses were established during the theoretical induction process in this study. Furthermore, the data were collected from real estate brokerage firms in Taichung City, Taichung County and Changhua County, Taiwan. Using a effective sample of 96 real estate brokerage firms, the results show that the causal ambiguity of human capital can positively affect organizational performance（including market and financial performance）. The results also clarify that the causal ambiguity of information asymmetry is the source of superior organizational performance exactly. Second, the results also show that the tacitness and specificity of human capital can positively affect causal ambiguity; however, the influence of complexity on causal ambiguity results in a partial concave upward curvilinear. Third, this study also support that the tacitness of human capital can positively affect organizational performance（including market and financial performance）. The specificity and complexity of human capital can positively affect organizational and financial performance; however, their positive influence on market performance is only partial. Finally, this study also show that the tacitness and specificity of human capital can positively affect organizational performance（including market and financial performance） via the mediator of causal ambiguity. However, can positively affect organizational performance（including market and financial performance）by the complexity of human capital is impossible through the mediator of causal ambiguity. Finally, we discuss implications of these empirical results. Furthermore, we suggest several avenues for practice and future research. It is a reminder for the readers about those limitations of the empirical findings.