Revealing the question marks in the ���Black Box���

Using Barney’s (1991) Resource-Based View (RBV) and the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework (Appelbaum Bailey Berg & Kalleberg 2000) as theoretical foundations this paper examines human capital as a mediator to the relationship between a system of HRM practices and individual level performance outcomes. The ‘Black Box’ phenomenon with human capital as mediator is a very relevant issue (Wright &McMahan 2011) in trying to explain how HRM practices do not only add value to the performance equation but can also show how employees can impact the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage. This study examines the ‘established relationship’ between HRM practices and performance outcomes (Becker & Gerhart 1996). It distinguishes itself in two ways from previous empirical work; in the first place because individual performance outcomes are examined and secondly because both context-generic and context-specific human capital are examined in the role of mediator. Thirteen hypotheses have been tested on a sample set of 5499 employees belonging to a large multinational company.