Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether an individual’s knowledge, skills and capabilities (human capital) are reflected in their compensation. Design/methodology/approach – Data are drawn from university academics in the Province of Ontario, Canada, earning more than CAD$100,000 per annum. Data on academics human capital are drawn from Research Gate. The authors construct a regression analysis to examine the relationship between human capital and salary. Findings – The analyses performed indicates a positive association between academic human capital and academic salaries. Research limitations/implications – This study is limited in that it measures an academic’s human capital solely through their research outputs as opposed to also considering their teaching outputs. Continuing research needs to be conducted in different country contexts and using negative proxies of human capital. Practical implications – This study will create awareness about the value of human capital and its contribution towards improving organisational structural capital. Social implications – The study contributes to the literature on human capital in accounting and business by focussing on the economic relevance of individual level human capital. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature on human capital in accounting and business by focussing on the economic relevance of individual level human capital. It will help create awareness of the importance of valuing human capital at the individual level.

Introduction

Total wealth includes all sources of income or consumable services. One such source is the productive capacity of human beings and accordingly this is one form in which wealth should be held. Lev and Schwartz (1971, p. 1) Houghton and Sheehan (2000) and Hospers (2003) identified three sectors that the economy has transitioned through: from an agricultural economy, to industrial economy and to what it is now, an informational economy, in the twenty-first century. Hospers (2003) reflected on Fourastie’s work in 1949, which focussed on the transformation of the economy through time, and hypothesised that the knowledge of technology will be the main force that shapes tomorrow. This has seen a shift in the mind-set of top management in businesses to maintain their competitive advantage; from the acquisition and accumulation of land (agricultural economy) (Houghton and Sheehan, 2000) to focussing on the acquisition of physical assets and commodities in a labour-intensive economy to prioritising intellectual capital and human capital, in the current information/knowledge economy (Godin, 2006). According to Hospers (2003), central to the transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy was the law of production, which stated that technology led to the growth of production and, in turn, fuelled the industrial sector. On the other hand, the law of consumption explained the transformation from an industrial economy to an informational economy in the twenty-first century. The law of consumption explained that increased production and the preference for intangible rather than material goods fuelled the informational economy through the increased preference for services (Hospers, 2003). To summarise, “the machine obliges man to specialise in the human” (Hospers, 2003). Furthermore, the need for change to an informational economy has also stemmed from the fusion between production and consumption in relation to many activities which formerly involved human beings (Diamond et al., 2013). This shift from an industrial economy, in which tangible resources were central to development and growth, to a knowledge-based or informational economy has seen an increase in human capital research over the last decade (Lev and Radhakrishnan, 2005). In time, the rise of intellectual capital and human capital has created wealth and value to the economy (Diamond et al., 2013). However, this research attempted to ascertain the association between an individual’s human capital and the value an organisation places on that capital. More specifically, the purpose of this research was to determine whether an individual’s human capital is captured in his or her remuneration. The motivation of this study stemmed from previous theories that explained the relationship between an individual’s human capital and their earnings. Psacharopoulos (2014) theorised that individuals with higher levels of education and more work experience would have higher wages. Therefore, this study investigated whether the above theories were applicable to a real-life context. It focussed on academics in public universities in Ontario, Canada, where annual salaries of those receiving over Canadian $100,000 are disclosed publicly.