The impact of multiple sources of employees’ capital on judgments regarding potential for career advancement

Purpose The human resource and talent management fields have been increasingly focusing on the process and criteria to identify employees’ potential for career advancement due to their impact on the competitive advantage of organizations. This paper expands the extant theoretical and empirical evidence regarding these complex decisions, namely through the combined analysis of multidimensional sources of employees' capital. Design/methodology/approach This is a cross-sectional study. Data were collected from 384 individuals assessed by their line managers. The research model and hypotheses were tested using structured equation modeling. Findings The results show a positive and significant influence of four employees’ capital sources, namely: human capital (what you know), social capital (whom you know), psychological capital (who you are) and reputational capital (how others perceive us) with regard to judgments of potential for career advancement. The model explains 52% of the total variance in those judgments. Research limitations/implications The data were collected using a questionnaire at a single point in time and thus, not allowing cause-effect inferences. Practical implications The results provide guidance to organizational leaders to improve the decision-making process regarding judgments of potential for career advancement. Originality/value To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine managers’ judgments regarding the potential for career advancement using four sources of employees' capital: human, social, psychological and reputational capital. Furthermore, it considers that reputation plays a mediation role.