ABSTRACT
The simultaneous pursuit of productivity (Exploitation) and technological capabilities (exploration) pose major challenges for businesses. This chapter brings forward human capital as an intangible resource that can help the organization achieve productivity and technological development simultaneously, striking a balance between them. Drawing on the concept of organizational ambidexterity and human capital theory, we derive the theoretical framework of the study modelling human capital, technological capabilities, and productivity in a single framework. For empirical testing of the derived framework, a major South Asian economy, i.e., Pakistan, has been taken as a case. For this purpose, the data was collected from 200 manufacturing firms of Pakistan through a closed-ended Likert scale-based questionnaire adopted from previous studies. Partial Least Square—Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was applied for data analysis. The empirical investigation supports the model. Specifically, the results showed a significant positive impact of human capital on the firms' productivity. The impact of human capital got magnified in technological capabilities showing a strong mediating role of it. A critical finding of the study is technological-led productivity growth. It implies that human capital development uplifts an organizational, technological capability, which further improves productivity.
