Conclusion
Human capital is not a particularly recent phenomenon, having started in the late twentieth century. Although there are many theoretical and empirical articles on cross-country or nationspecific and industry-specific studies, research at the individual level is thus far limited. The present study was aimed at determining if an academic’s knowledge, skills and abilities (human capital) are reflected in his/her salary. Based on prior research, many researchers have theorized a positive relationship between an individual’s human capital and their projected income; more education, work experience and industry-specific skills are compensated for in an individual’s salary and therein lies a premium for one’s human capital. This study sampled 200 academics across the business schools of public universities located in the Province of Ontario. As hypothesised, the results suggested a positive correlation between an academic’s stock of human capital and the individual’s income. Although some measures of human capital (e.g. gender) proved insignificant, the number of citations, the Hirsch index (H-index) and the ResearchGate score (RG score) proved to be highly significant in their positive correlation to income. This is most probably due to the scope of the measure and their effectiveness in measuring human capital. The number of publications and profile views of an academic, though positively correlated, were insignificant in their relationship. In hindsight, the result is best explained by the quality vs quantity debate. The findings clearly show that the quality of an academic’s research output (the academic’s number of citations and H-index) carried more weight that the quantity of research output with regards to their stock of human capital (the academic’s number of publications). This research has practical implications for universities and other industries alike beyond the borders of Canada. In the long term, the contribution of this research may influence employers to more effectively reward employees by linking salaries/income to the individual’s output of human capital (research output). This is to say, provide Inducements coupling income to human capital can help nurture, foster and improve an individual’s human capital stock. The study is more relevant to knowledge-intensive industries, as opposed to performance-based manufacturing and retail industries. Though this may come to fruition in the long term, continuous research will have to be conducted into the value of human capital. First, research will have to be carried out in other countries, and second, research will have to be conducted across different times, especially in a rapidly changing economic environment.
