Human Capital and SMEs Internationalization: Development and Validation of a Measurement Scale

Ishaq Ahmad Dar and Mridula Mishra

Global Business Review, 2021, vol. 22, issue 3, 718-734

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to develop a measurement scale for human capital in context of SMEs internationalization. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied on primary data collected from Indian SMEs. This developed scale was tested for reliability and validity. We found that ‘education’, ‘knowledge’, ‘experience’ and ‘skills’ are the main dimensions of human capital in SMEs, and were found reliable and valid to measure this construct. This study has combined the dimensions previously used separately in other studies. Results supported the past studies which concluded that human capital is a multidimensional construct. This study has extended multidimensionality of human capital in context of SMEs specifically in their internationalization. The study will imply to practitioners in assessment of human capital in SMEs, related to the dimensions constituting it. Objectives of policies and programmes to further enhance and develop human capital can be set accordingly. In addition, international entrepreneurship researchers can use this measurement scale to further study and investigate human capital and its components in SMEs. This study provides a ground for further adding more dimensions and variables to human capital.

Keywords: Human capital; internationalization; SMEs; scale; knowledge; experience; skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0972150918817390 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:globus:v:22:y:2021:i:3:p:718-734

DOI: 10.1177/0972150918817390

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Global Business Review from International Management Institute
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().