Research on the Performance of Human Capital at Different Organizational Levels of Pharmaceutical Corporations: Moderation of Informal Relational Capital

As intellectual capital is considered an important strategic resource in knowledge-intensive industries, such as the health and pharmaceutical industries, scholars have developed a deeper understanding of the human capital at different levels of organizations and its interaction with relational capital from informal institutional stakeholders. This study focused on the role of human capital at different levels of pharmaceutical corporations and the orchestration of human capital at different levels with informal relational capital. By using data regarding Chinese pharmaceutical listed companies from 2001 to 2017, this study found that (1) human capital at the employee level exerted an inverted U-shaped effect on a pharmaceutical firm’s performance, which was negatively moderated by informal institutional relational capital, and (2) based on the upper echelons theory, human capital at the executive level had a monotonic positive impact on a pharmaceutical firm’s performance but was negatively moderated by informal relational capital. We found two arrangements that facilitate the orchestration of intellectual capital components to gain optimal distinctiveness and performance.