Knowledge can either be explicit or tacit. While explicit knowledge can be documented and transferred, tacit knowledge is difficult to transfer by writing or verbalizing. Common forms of explicit knowledge are manuals, documents, procedures and product design, Tacit knowledge is essential to competitive advantage because it's difficult or even impossible for competitors to copy. Examples of tacit knowledge is leadership and innovation. The importance of human capital is not only to international companies but also to small and medium sized companies (SMEs) that are exposed to international competition due to globalization. An important point to note is that SMEs, by number, dominate the world business stage and estimates suggest that more than 95% of enterprises across the world are SMEs.
Human capital is the total sum of a person's knowledge and skills that an SME company can use to achieve its goals or objective. As a large number of SME companies are labour intensive (focusing on production) SMEs companies will need to compete with international companies to recruit and retain skilled employees. Often international companies offer better remuneration and hence are more attractive to jobseeker. Without the required pool of labour, SMEs will fail to produce their …show more content…
It is these employees with these set of skills and knowledge that can make or break a business. Therefore, SMEs will need to have adequate knowledge of the local labour market in order to recruit the best employees.
To have the competitive advantage, SMEs need to attract people who are not only experienced and have the know-how, but also people who are innovative and creative in designing and producing products or services that are outstanding and advantageous to its competitors. Likewise, SMEs exploring across borders will also need people who have excellent soft skills to build a foreign network or business.
Consequently, SMEs require the right size and right type of human capital in order to sustain and compete globally.
The following is n extraction of the top 10 ranked countries of location attractiveness based on the publication of BDO IBC 2015. As explained earlier, the ranking takes into consideration the capacities of the working population, qualification of the labour pool and labour market institution together with the economic, political and socio-cultural indicators of the individual