This paper details an empirical pilot study that explores the development of several conceptual measures and models regarding intellectual capital and its impact on business performance. The objective of this pilot study is to explore the development of items and constructs through principal components analysis and partial least squares (PLS). The final retained, subjective measures and optimal structural specification show a valid, reliable, significant and substantive causal link between dimensions of intellectual capital and business performance. These results should help both academics and practitioners more readily understand the components of intellectual capital and provide insight into developing and increasing it within an organization. Suggestions are then made to advance and improve this research programme.

Intellectual capital: an exploratory study that develops measures and models

This paper reviews the literature pertaining to the assessment of knowledge assets. Since knowledge assets are at the crux of sustainable competitive advantage, the burgeoning field of intellectual capital is an exciting area for both researchers and practitioners. Unfortunately, the measurement of such intangible assets is difficult. A variety of models have surfaced in an attempt to measure IC and this paper aims to highlight their strengths, weaknesses and operationalizations.

http://www.tarrani.net/kate/docs/AssessingKnowledgeAssets.pdf

Assessing knowledge assets: a review of the models used to measure intellectual capital

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate empirically the relation between the value creation efficiency and firms’ market valuation and financial performance.Design/methodology/approach – Using data drawn from Taiwanese listed companies and Pulic's Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™) as the efficiency measure of capital employed and intellectual capital, the authors construct regression models to examine the relationship between corporate value creation efficiency and firms’ market‐to‐book value ratios, and explore the relation between intellectual capital and firms’ current as well as future financial performance.Findings – The results support the hypothesis that firms’ intellectual capital has a positive impact on market value and financial performance, and may be an indicator for future financial performance. In addition, the authors found investors may place different value on the three components of value creation efficiency (physical capital, human capital, and structural cap...

An empirical investigation of the relationship between intellectual capital and firms’ market value and financial performance

This paper considers the relationship between the stocks and flows of learning across levels in an overall organizational learning system. A survey instrument based on the Strategic Learning Assessment Map (SLAM) was administered to 15 individuals representing senior-, middle- and non-management levels from each of 32 organizations, resulting in a total sample of 480 respondents. This research supports the premise that there is a positive relationship between the stocks of learning at all levels and business performance. Furthermore, the proposition that the misalignment of stocks and flows in an overall organizational learning system is negatively associated with business performance is also supported.

Managing An Organizational Learning System By Aligning Stocks and Flows

The principal purpose of this study is to investigate the association between the efficiency of value added (VA) by the major components of a firm's resource base (physical capital, human capital and structural capital) and three traditional dimensions of corporate performance: profitability, productivity, and market valuation. Data are drawn from a sample of 75 publicly traded firms from South Africa from business sectors heavily reliant on intellectual capital. Empirical analysis is conducted using correlation and linear multiple regression analysis. Findings from the empirical analysis indicate that associations between the efficiency of VA by a firm's major resource bases and profitability, productivity and market valuation are generally limited and mixed. Overall, the empirical findings suggest that physical capital remains the most significant underlying resource of corporate performance in South Africa despite efforts to increase the nation's intellectual capital base.

Intellectual capital and traditional measures of corporate performance

http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/K_Toolbox_-_Tools_Available_to_Measure_Intangible_Resources.pdf

THE KNOWLEDGE TOOLBOX: A Review of the Tools Available To Measure and Manage Intangible Resources

La evaluación de Ausindustry y el business network programme: una perspectiva desde el capital intelectual

COSA, the Caterpillar business unit responsible for most of Europe, the Middle-East, Africa and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States — the former USSR), is doing business with clear financial objectives. Its vital performance dimensions are sales growth, keeping the leading market position, and a good return to its owners, Caterpillar Inc. The chief performance measure in COSA is Return-on-Assets (ROA).

Developing an Intellectual Capital System: the Process Model

With an incredible US$168 billion in sales General Motors, a company representing the prosperous industrial era, again hit the top spot of the famous Fortune 500 ranking in 1996. From the perspective of the classical ‘factors of production’ — land, labour, money, and equipment — the US$222 billion of assets1 of GM makes it a very wealthy and indeed influential company.

The New Business World

Despite the fact that vertical integration has been a key question of management studies for more than fifty years, we still do not have a unified, coherent view of outsourcing. In particular, multiple theoretical perspectives such as transaction cost economics, industrial organization, and strategy, could explain the outsourcing decision, but the implications of these different streams have neither been theoretically integrated, nor tested simultaneously. In an attempt to disentangle the various causes of outsourcing, we suggest three different rationales for outsourcing: cost reduction, focusing on core capabilities and importing knowledge into the firm. We develop several hypotheses, which we then test on secondary data on French small- and medium-sized enterprises. Results indicate that the learning rationale appears to be the strongest factor influencing the outsourcing decision. Some performance implications of this rationale are also suggested and tested.

Nicola Carlo Dragonetti

Papers

THE KNOWLEDGE TOOLBOX: A Review of the Tools Available To Measure and Manage Intangible Resources

La evaluación de Ausindustry y el business network programme: una perspectiva desde el capital intelectual

Developing an Intellectual Capital System: the Process Model

The New Business World

A comparative Test of the Efficiency, Focus and Learning Perspectives of Outsourcing