The Need to Accumlate Human Capital Across Levels of Export Intensity: Activating Resources that are

With increasing levelsof export intensity firms begin to face new demands. The first set of resources brought to bear on the issues! and those resources that are most quickly mobilised! are the employees. Indeed! higher levels of exporting require activating relatively less mobile resources through the building of organisational structures and mechanisms for managing repositories of knowledge (particularly orga nisational specialisation and selectively hiring appropriately skilled staff).This paper explores the management of human capital across different levels of export activity inAustralian manufacturing firms. Analyses were based on 90 Australian-headquartered manufacturing exporters that responded to a survey. OveralL the results support the notion that firms need to accumulate knowledge as they internationalise. These results are discussed in terms of their consequences for HRM practices