Managing human capital for sustainable competitive advantage: a case of Ufone GSM Pakistan

Abstract

This paper is aimed to highlight the importance of managing human capital (HC) for sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) in the saturated telecommunication market of Pakistan. The study was conducted through semi structured questionnaire in April-June; 2009. The Sample chosen for the study comprised of one hundred and thirty five employees of UFONE GSM, a leading company in the mobile communication sector of Pakistan. The factors affecting sustainable competitive advantage were identified as financial performance (0.876), organizational structure (0.461), profit (0.136), market share expansion (0.365). Analysis showed immense support for positive relationship between human capital and sustainable competitive advantage; greatly affected the HR practices of recruitment, selection, formal and Informal training and extensive job involvement respectively. All these results are statistically significant thus providing rigor and generalizability in research. This exploratory paper suggests more HC intensive policies to increase the competitive advantage as positive relationship has been found between the two variables.