Human Capital. Theory and Evidence in Light of Socio-Economic Structuralism

In the era of mass currency pertaining to the Bourdesian concepts of cultural and social capital, the latter given in somewhat different renderings by a plethora of other authors, such as Putnam, Coleman and so on it is easy to forget what the true 'founding father', or 'mother', if you like of the entire 'capital' family was. Furthermore, the notion concerned, owing to its association to the economic, and in particular managerial practice and corporate governance, could be said to possess even greater importance than the two varieties of the supreme category mentioned above, all their -real or ostensible charm, apparently so attractive to the practitioners of the humanities and social sciences notwithstanding. However, the patience of the reader is kindly requested; the concept concerned will be tackled head-on in Part II of the present book while in the brief Part I the underlying theoretical and conceptual framework that shall be deployed in that analysis needs to be illuminated. And you know what? As opposed to some other authors who in similar circumstances tell the reader that she can, if she wants, skip this (purportedly hard to swallow and boring) theoretical considerations and skip to the core of the matter, which in this book is placed in Part II; as distinct thus to the majority of writers, the reader is not advised by the present author to skip the theoretical section, since absent these considerations, she is bound to have some difficulties in understanding or understanding in full the material in the remaining parts of the current work. Finally, being frank by default, so to speak, the undersigned must confess that there are certain more personal motivations behind the aformentioned recommendation, too; after all, parents worldwide commonly boast about their offspring and precisely such a relationship obtains between the current intellectual producer and the principal theoretical core of what is being put forward below.