INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES

The function of knowledge resources as the engine of organizations has become widely recognised and there is no doubt that successful organizations tend to be those that continually innovate, relying on technologies and the skills and knowledge of their employees, rather than hard assets such as plants or machinery. The management of knowledge resources (MKR) creates value. Less clear is how value is created. The need to investigate the MKR in more depth is well established in the literature and practice. The terms Knowledge Resources (KR) and Intellectual Capital (IC) may not be used in everyday organizational language. However, what they represent in the knowledge-based economy is intangible resources such as relationships with customers, brands, supplier relationships, networks and employee competences, all of which create value for an organization or for stakeholders. This book contributes to the literature by reviewing contemporary thinking about KR and IC and, for the first time, exploring in-depth numerous IC frameworks and actual reporting of MKR. The relevance of KR and their management have been recognised by many IC frameworks, all of which aim to make IC visible, and these are classified and analysed. Also, a practical and informed understanding of how MKR was conceptualised and reported within a selected group of ‘outstanding practice’ private, listed and public organizations is discussed. The original analysis in this book of the contemporary IC frameworks and ‘outstanding practice’ organizations suggest that there is significant and varied international practice concerning the MKR and its reporting. The main implications of this book are that current contemporary IC frameworks are limited and that to overcome these limitations an engagement with relevant aspects of the literature pertaining to strategy, performance measurement and management of IC is necessary. This book revolutionizes the topics of IC and MKR by its conceptualisation of strategization and its related concepts (e.g., emergent strategies; incremental and radical innovations; and interactive use of information) which are used to build the Strategic Management of Knowledge Resources (SMKR) framework. Finally, the book contributes to ongoing policy debates about suitable frameworks for the managing and reporting of knowledge resources.