The Role of Strategic Human Capital Management in Achieving the Competitive Advantage1

These days Human Capital is considered most important element of competitive advantage in most organizations. In is just one of the organisation’s intangible assets; it is basically all of the competencies of the people within an organization. These competencies are various skills, education, and experience, potential and capacity. It is believed that if a company know how its human capital contributes to their success, it than can be measured and managed effectively. Developing human capital in the organisation is the major challenge for the leaders for formulating future competitive strategies. “Dynamic and complex competitive landscape has created considerable uncertainty for firms, however conditions of uncertainty also present opportunities†(Hitt et al 1998). Organizations are increasingly looking at human resources as a unique asset that can provide sustained competitive advantage. The changes in the business environment with increasing globalization, changing demographics of the workforce, increased focus on profitability through growth, technological changes, intellectual capital and the never ending changes that organizations are undergoing have led to increased importance of managing human resources. The importance of human capital to play role in gaining competitive advantage is greater than ever before because of it is crucial wealth, success and competitive advantage of the organisation. “To create workforce that provide competitive advantage the firms create environment that provide knowledge, motivation, engagement that would be difficult for competitors to imitate†(Afioni 2007; Agarwal & Ferret, 2001; Luftman & kempaiah 2007). This research investigate the role of strategic management human capital that allow the Algerian companies to achieve the competitive advantage among a case study in different Algerian companies.