We explore the relationship between workers’ perceptions of firm-specific human capital (FSHC) and turnover. The belief that actual FSHC constrains mobility undergirds its critical role in resource-based theory. However, this rests on a strong assumption of information efficiency that market actors correctly assess how specific an individual’s skills are, and price it appropriately. Emerging theoretical viewpoints dispute this, pointing out labor market imperfections and substantial difficulty in observing FSHC. We therefore develop theory about how perceived FSHC may relate positively to mobility by articulating a role for well-known supply-side mechanisms such as job satisfaction, embeddedness, and preference for job autonomy. Using two archival surveys and two primary surveys collected in very different contexts (South Korea and the United States), we found support for our theory. Perceptions of FSHC were associated with increased mobility and this effect was partially mediated by job satisfaction and job embeddedness. The effect was augmented for workers who value autonomy in their jobs (and who are more likely to exit if they perceived their skills as FSHC). Since the effect of perceived FSHC is quite different from that OF extant theory which focused on actual FSHC, we explore implications for resource-based and human capital theories.

中文翻译：

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感知到的企业特定人力资本：流动性限制还是增强？

我们探讨了员工对公司特定人力资本 (FSHC) 的看法与营业额之间的关系。实际 FSHC 限制流动性的信念巩固了其在基于资源的理论中的关键作用。然而，这依赖于信息效率的强有力假设，即市场参与者正确评估个人技能的具体程度，并对其进行适当的定价。新兴的理论观点对此提出质疑，指出劳动力市场的不完善以及观察 FSHC 的巨大困难。因此，我们通过阐明工作满意度、嵌入性和对工作自主权的偏好等众所周知的供给方机制的作用，发展了关于感知的 FSHC 如何与流动性积极相关的理论。通过在截然不同的背景下（韩国和美国）收集的两项档案调查和两项初步调查，我们发现了对我们理论的支持。对 FSHC 的看法与流动性的增加有关，这种影响部分是由工作满意度和工作嵌入性介导的。对于那些重视工作自主权的工人（如果他们认为自己的技能属于 FSHC，他们更有可能退出），这种影响会更大。由于感知的 FSHC 的效果与关注实际 FSHC 的现有理论有很大不同，因此我们探讨了对基于资源和人力资本理论的影响。