Proactiveness, Human Capital Investment,and Human Capital:An Empirical Study of Chinese Firms

Abstract

Although proactiveness in literature emphasizes “buying” human capital, firms often need to balance external and internal human capital investment. We suggest that human capital investment could be clarified into two types: value-added and value-maintained. We use the data from China to investigate the relationships among proactiveness, human capital investment, and human capital. Our analysis shows that proactiveness is positively related with two types of human capital investment. Moreover, human capital investment plays significant mediating role between proactiveness and human capital. Our study reveals two complementary strategies of human capital investment for proactiveness.