Human Capital, Organizational Competences and Knowledge and Innovation Transfer: A Case Study Applied to the Mining Sector

This chapter aims to reveal that in certain conditions, especially in the context of restructuring processes, the articulation between organizational competences and individual competences, in terms of knowledge and innovation transfer, is not as important as pointed out by the literature on human capital. A case study is developed, presenting a situational analysis of the human capital’s organizational competences in a subsidiary owned by a multinational company operating in the mining sector in Portugal. The collection of primary data is carried out through interviews with the local directors, and complemented by secondary data from document analysis. The empirical evidence obtained indicates that although the competences and specific know-how of human capital in the subsidiary play a critical role for the success of the restructuring process, they do not increase the attractiveness of the parent-company’s tendency to reinforce knowledge and innovation transfer mechanisms, which could be justified by the lack of specific knowledge and (internal and external) communication culture; as well as the absence of a knowledge-sharing culture signalled by the Japanese parent-company.