On the Link between Human Capital and Firm Performance. A Theoretical and Empirical Survey

The present paper provides a review of the literature focusing the relationship between human capital and performance essentially at firm level. The exposition is approached in three different but interrelated perspectives: economic, technological and survival. The exercise of reviewing existing literature permitted to uncover four major neglected issues: 1) the analysis of human capital – skills relationship; 2) the determinants of demands for human capital and how those demands change; interrelated with the second, 3) the influence of social and institutional context on the accumulation of human capital; and 4) the link between human capital and firms capacity of survival at both theoretical and empirical grounds.