Intellectual capital profit chain: Linking human resource management practice systems to customer orientation

Background The literature regarding the relationship between HRM and customer orientation in the service context largely ignores the processes and expected management actions outside marketing, and particularly within Human Resource Management. This has hampered the wider adoption of the Service Profit Chain (SPC) model. The present article is an attempt to rectify this problem; it draws on intellectual capital literature and the group psychology theory pioneered by Mary Follett to propose the Intellectual Capital Profit Chain (ICPC) model. Objective The paper links HRM and intellectual capital to the key marketing variables of customer orientation, customer satisfaction and to business performance in a full model that has not previously been presented. Results The ICPC model recasts intra- and inter-organizational activities as contributing to the accumulation of intellectual capital, in turn driving both engagement and customer orientation. Conclusions The development of the ICPC model forms the main contribution of this paper as it can serve as a framework for building and managing HRM configurations that align with human, social, and organizational capital to promote customer orientation.