Specialized Human Capital in Professional Services: Task Specificity and Firm Performance
Abstract
Why do individuals and firms in professional services specialize, and how does it
influence performance over time? Many studies have found performance benefits of worker specialization in production (Rosen 1983; Becker 1985; Becker and Murphy, 1992; Nagle and Teodoritis, 2019) as well as in labor markets (Ferguson and Hasan, 2013; Merluzzi and Phillips, 2016; Bruce, 2019). Other studies have focused on performance benefits to teams (Ching, Forti, and Rawley, 2019) and organizations from worker specialization (Smith, 1776; Byun, Frake, and Agarwal, 2018). However, less is understood about what induces individuals and firms to
specialize and when they are likely to see performance benefits from specialization. This stems in part from the tendency of previous work to cloud the distinction between specialization in production and specialized human capital. This is problematic because it consequently remains unclear how human capital should be organized at the firm level to increase production and improve firm performance (e.g., Coff, 1997; Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011; Crocker and Eckhardt; 2014; Wright, Coff, and Moliterno, 2014; Barney and Felin, 2013).
Original Publication Citation
"“Specialized Human Capital in Professional Services: Task Specificity and Firm Performance” Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2020. Virtual."
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Cooper, Ryan and Gubler, Timothy, "Specialized Human Capital in Professional Services: Task Specificity and Firm Performance" (2020). Faculty Publications. 9880.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/9880
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2020
Publisher
Academy of Management
Language
English
College
Marriott School of Business
Department
Marketing
Copyright Use Information
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/