Why university matters: the impact of university resources on foreign workers’ human and social capital accumulation

Over the last decade, many Asian countries have increasingly relied on the employment of foreign workers to solve domestic labor shortages. This has stimulated debate in the fields of economics and strategic management about the relationship between the recruitment of foreign workers and national and firm-level competitive advantage. However, little research has explored the effects of the host government’s industrial policy on foreign worker s’ human and social capital accumulation and the potential benefits to both firms and the host country. The current study helps fill this knowledge gap. The authors build an exogenous growth model and develop several propositions to derive a theory of accumulation of foreign workers’ human and social capital that promotes host country and firm-level competitive advantages. The current study uses data collected from a sample at the Philippine Learning Commons at the National University of Kaohsiung in Taiwan to test the propositions in an applied setting. The theoretical framework and empirical findings help broaden theories of migration and strategic management.