Capital humano nas organizações brasileiras: uma relação entre escolaridade, geração de riqueza e valor da empresa

Abstract

Several studies indicate the positive relationship between human capital and organizational success, due to the influence of qualified individuals in exploring new business opportunities, acquiring new resources and accumulating knowledge and skills. However, it was observed that the researches that worked with the return on investment in human capital are still incipient, especially because the literature remains fragmented regarding the conceptualization and measurement of human capital and the performance indicators of companies that would be adequate to identify the contribution of that capital. The present work intends to fill part of this gap from the objective of analyzing the relationship between the education levels of the employees with the generation of wealth and value of the company. As theoretical support, the study was based on the theory of human capital, adopting Theodore W. Schultz's concepts for human capital, education and its economic value. Therefore, the research is characterized as quantitative, descriptive and documentary and used three databases to obtain information: Annual Social Information Report (RAIS), Economática® and B3 website. The treatment of these data was carried out based on Pearson's linear correlation, to verify the relationship between the company value and added value variables with the education variable; and to understand the interaction between the level of education and the other control variables, a three-level multilevel regression was applied, considering the temporal evolution (period from 2008 to 2017), the characteristics of the companies and the characteristics of the sectors. The results indicated that the education index is positively correlated with the company's value. Through multilevel regression, it was also found that the education index is positively and significantly related to the company's value. It was also observed that this relationship is moderated by characteristics of the sector in which the company is classified and other financial characteristics of the company itself. In relation to the added value, the results also indicated that the education index is positively correlated with the added value. However, from the multilevel regression, the schooling index was not incorporated into the model, due to problems of multicollinearity with other explanatory variables, which does not disqualify its positive relationship with added value. The results of the study indicate that the thesis that professionals with the highest level of education generate social (wealth generation) and market (company value) benefits for organizations was not refuted. These results are expected to provide new information to the theory of human capital within organizations, expanding the analysis to the performance of companies, by focusing the study between education and market value and education and added value. In addition, it is expected to contribute to the debate on the problems of measuring human capital, placing accounting in its mission of representing reality, by indicating that this resource is relevant to the market value and added value of publicly traded companies in Brazil.