If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between employee loyalty and organizational performance. It starts with the idea that the employee loyalty creates value for the organization. This statement is widely endorsed in the literature although there is little consensus on the definition of loyalty. The paper proposes a refined synthesis of the literature on the link between employee loyalty and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach -The paper addresses the question of whether there is a robust positive link between employee loyalty and organizational performance. The paper starts by reviewing the various, sometimes divergent, approaches to employee loyalty in the literature and then compare the different indicators of loyalty in relation to their relevance to different indicators of performance. Findings -The paper provides a critical overview of the different existing conceptions of employee loyalty. It points out ambiguity about both the theoretical contours of the concept, and practical means of making it a source of value for the organization. The paper shows that the link between employee loyalty and performance varies according to the type of indicators used.Research limitations/implications -The paper highlights a variety of indicators for employee loyalty to their firm and for organizational performance. But much research remains to be conducted, notably on the managerial levers that might consolidate or improve organizational performance. Originality/value -This paper fulfills an identified need to survey a fragmented theoretical field of analysis.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the specific valuable partnership between human capital-intensive firms (HCIFs) and fourth-party logistics (4PLs), and in particular, to explore the way boundaries of HCIFs are changing as a consequence of the growing importance of 4PLs. Design/methodology/approach – The paper represents the viewpoints of the authors as far as the role of 4PLs in the changing boundaries of HCIFs is concerned. It is based on a literature review, especially on the analysis of the recent works on organizational boundaries developed by Garicano, Santos and their co-authors. It establishes the prerequisites on the actors of the phenomenon and provides a knowledge-based conceptual framework to understand their dynamic relationship. Findings – The authors show that the relationship between a HCIF and a 4PL represents a balance of power between two partners based on the co-specialized human capital provided by each of them. From four main propositions, the authors explain that the HCIF extends its boundaries and create more value through the in-house and outside critical human capital it uses. Originality/value – The specific partnership between HCIFs and 4PLs has been rarely mentioned in the economics and management literature. This interdisciplinary viewpoint essentially provides both academics and practitioners with a conceptual map of 4PLs and HCIFs research and also points out opportunities for future research.

Social capital theory generally analyses network structures by focusing on the connections between players. However, it has been suggested by several authors that the absence of relations in a network or ‘structural holes’ is meaningful. The aim of our paper is to provide a global survey and appraisal of the academic research on structural holes and discuss its main measurements. We adopt a bibliometric approach and identify a typology of practices, developments, and issues related to structural holes. We highlight a strand of work on operationalization of structural holes, and discuss the various measures they propose. We provide numerical examples emphasizing the respective advantages and limitations of the studied measures. Based on our results, we propose a guide to using existing measures of structural holes according to the type (simple or complex) of network.

The aim of this paper is to study the process of symbolic value creation of human capital-intensive firms. Human capital is a critical resource for firms’ activities. Nevertheless, this dimension is often obscured by industrial economists. In the light of critical resource theory, we analyze how taking into account the inalienable and inimitable nature of specific human capital entails a reconsideration of the role and boundaries of the firm. We show that the firm seeks to coordinate the specialization of its key partners within the frame of its economic boundaries to ensure the long-term optimization of its potential of value. Therefore, the value of the firm depends on all the resources that the firm coordinates. Then we focus on the way HCIF can create different values. We suggest that the firm builds its competitive advantage on different forms of values, in particular the symbolic value incorporated in human capital. Finally, on the basis of these considerations, we identify the wealth included in the critical resources of the firm and to bring to light the process of symbolic value creation associated with it. We suggest that the firm is the value creating entity and the customer both recognizes and derives the value created from whatever it is that the firm provides. We propose a definition of this value and a schema of its creation process based on management works attempts. We conclude by proposing paths of research that could fruitfully be explored to further develop this new subject.

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Social capital is decisive to many of strategic objectives of organizations. Although it has been extensively defined in the literature, social capital continues to be discussed in particular concerning its measurement. What is the usability of the existing indicators of social capital? How do managers decide which one they would prefer? An overview of the literature reveals that there are very few measurements of social capital and those which have already developed are very complex. Direct measurements appear to provide a better understanding of the complexity of relationships than aggregated measurements. Yet, we show that they are of unsatisfactory quality. Using simple counter-examples, we advance that they give rise to contradictions. From this discussion and using Graph Theory, we propose two complementary indicators of social capital which we call “relational strength” and “relational potential”. These operational indicators can be handled by any actors to position themselves within their social sphere.

Notre article a pour objectif d’analyser l’évolution des frontières des firmes intensives en capital humain faisant suite à l’importance accrue des Prestataires de Services Logistiques dans leur activité productive. Les relations spécifiques entre ces partenaires sont à l’origine d’une véritable mutation dans la façon d’étudier la coordination interentreprises et d’observer l’élargissement des frontières de la firme qui en découle. Nous montrons que les approches traditionnelles de la firme sont inadaptées pour comprendre ces liens forts et complexes. Nous suggérons, par ailleurs, que les « nouvelles » analyses des frontières de la firme mettent à disposition des éléments d’investigation capables de cerner ces formes modernes de coopération.

The aim of this paper is to provide an exhaustive survey of the academic research dedicated to the study of human capital-intensive firms (HCIFs). We use a bibliometric analysis based on the three widely used databases (Econlit, Science Direct and Wiley) over the period 1992-2015. We are adapting a methodology developed in previous works to our specific object of study, and we generate a bottom-up clustering on keywords, titles and abstracts. Our examination of the data sheds a light on five main clusters of works that respectively focus on (1) critical human resource management, (2) intellectual capital assessment, (3) funding risk and innovation (4) high-skilled employees supporting economic development and (5) internal and external valuable social networks. In a critical appraisal of our results, we stress that the bibliometric analysis remains silent on how the different clusters are linked with each other. Based on our own appreciation of the HCIFs literature, we propose a further step in the identification of a central question linking up these clusters: a transversal review of the five clusters reveals that HCIFs appear as a network of specialized agents whose complementary human resources are decisive for the value-creation process. ; Tel: +33 4 93 95 43 94.