The Human Capital Impact on the Shareholder Value Creation

From the mid-eighties until 2000 the United States experienced a period of economic growth at rates higher than those of the other main industrial countries, in particular Germany and Japan. Other economic indicators also gave clearly superior results: lower unemployment and inflation rates and a higher capital productivity. In a dynamic economy new opportunities continually arise. Under such a stimulus to growth - according to Copeland, Koller and Murrin (2000), managing consultants for research undertaken by McKinsey - management is constantly searching for new capital to finance its latest investment, and this leads to continuous pressure to come up with strategies that give value to the invested capital. Since there is competition for capital and capital flows toward those investment projects that guarantee the highest return, the management of growing companies select strategies and investment projects on the basis of the differential between return and cost of capital. A significant number of firms claim to have obtained a relevant increase in shareholder value. These successes occurred toward the end of the 1990s, a time when stock markets were growing and national economies were able to absorb without too much disruption the restructuring dictated by rigid laws, such as the abandoning of undertakings or projects that did not create shareholder value. Behind this rapid spread of the shareholder value theory, in particular in the U.S. and Britain, are concerns about defending against raiders, the entry of institutional investors in capital markets, the remuneration of management, and the crises in the pension systems. Following the acceptance of the principle that management must aim toward the production of shareholder value, much has been written about the advantages in creating shareholder value and the operating policies to obtain this (Rappaport, 1998; Hennel, Warner, 1998; Cornelius, Davies, 1997). "Shareholder value is therefore defined as the difference between corporate value and debt, where corporate value is the sum of the future (or free) cash flows discounted at the WACC" (Black, Wright, Davies, 2001). "To maximize shareholder wealth, management must generate, evaluate, and select business strategies that will increase the corporate value" (Morin, Jarrel, 2001). "Strictly speaking, firms are considered as systems for the creation of economic and financial value for their shareholders, and their performance - profit and the value of capital - is measured by a coherent system of monetary values. " (Mella, Gazzola, 2004). On the other hand, human resources are considered a very important strategic lever in companies. So "managing people" in organizations doesn't mean just managing and organizing workforce as the others costs we can find in the balance sheet and, what's more, the traditional corporate balance cannot account for the ethical values and other intangibles which are fundamental to the success of the enterprise in creating economic values. This shows the relevance of human capital and intangible assets (Bahra, 2001) in value creation decisions (Griliches, 1996) and the need for: creativity, by which products and processes are continually innovated (Christensen, 1997; Deephouse, 1999), thereby favouring applied scientific research and technological innovation (Von Hippel, 1995); intelligence in understanding internal and external processes, in order to rationalize the technical processes of production; organizational learning and the formation of learning organizations to meet the competitive challenges through new work rules; a good reputation for the firm in its environment (Carter; Manaster, 1990). Theories supporting the relationship between employee development and responsibility and productivity improvement, and employee satisfaction and financial performances now have more importance, but this is not all: the impact of the most advanced ways for managing people enable companies to achieve very positive long terms results. This can confirm that people managing practices need to be integrated in workplaces to obtain real advantages such as greater productivity and, as a consequence, greater shareholder value creation (Rappaport, 2006). Undoubtedly a calibrated grade of turnover, a correct allocation of financial resources for internal training, and appropriate methods of incentive and recruiting contribute to value creation. Most research studies have shown that the human factor enables organizations to face markets in which they are competing, and competitive advantage has been the most important factor in changing the labour market and people management (Pfeffer, 1999; Caudron, 1994; Armstrong, 2006; Kaplan, Norton 2004). For instance, Jac Fitz-Enz (2001), pioneer of human capital impact valuation, provided the bases for empirical support of theories that claim how the workforce is strategic to obtaining great financial results. In other words, organizations can measure and maximize the value of their investment in employees. Other researchers have demonstrated that companies with superior human capital practices can create substantially more shareholder value than companies with average human capital practices and that advanced human capital practices prevail, regardless of the economy; the same key practices that are associated with higher value show up in bull, bear and flat markets. Our research starts with the valuation of financial results for the best companies to work for, in terms of shareholder value creation. The Great Place to Work Institute conducted the most extensive employee survey in corporate America in order to choose the "100 Best Companies to Work for" (more than 105,000 employees from 446 companies responded to a 57-question survey). As we aim to prove, companies giving greater attention to the working conditions of their own workforce not only make people working inside more faithful and involved, but also handle a strategic lever able to create value for shareholders. In the first part of the paper (M. Pellicelli) we shall present the shareholder value theory and the principal corporate value measures usually used to communicate value to investors of the largest corporations. In particular we will analyse the significant results obtained by a sample of the "100 Best Companies to Work for" in terms of market value added and total shareholder return. In the second part of the paper (C. Casalegno) we will present the human resource theory and analyse the principal factors adopted by the "100 Best Companies to Work for" that have obtained the best shareholder value results.