Intellectual Capital Management: Global Perspectives on Higher Education, Science and Technology
Sobre este e-book
—Karl-Erik Sveiby, The Invisible Balance Sheet[1]
This was a critical juncture in the life of Intellectual Capital Management (ICM). Since the 1990s, the topic of intangibles has been the focus of attention for both academic researches and business practices. A significant amount of literature attempts to understand the nature of intangibles, to measure them, as well as to assess the value relevance of different intangible elements. Given the economic importance of intangibles, a number of intangible measurement frameworks or models have been developed, and different guidelines have been constructed. Nowadays, there is no doubt that if nations and organizations want to attain a competitive advantage, they have to deal with intellectual capital. They are in the balance sheets of national and organizational wealth and value, although not in the explicit terms and figures that accountants need for calculation. Almost 23years ago, Sveiby in his book, the invisible Balance Sheet, wrote:
“Rarely is the question asked, why measure intangibles? The answer is not self-evident. Intangibles are difficult and expensive to measure and the results are so uncertain, so the reason had better be a good one.” [2]
We know that the answers to this question probably already exist within our organizations, but we have yet to map the easiest and most accessible routes to them. However, a significant amount of empirical research can be found in the field of value relevance of intangibles, most of this has focused on the impacts of individual intellectual capital components on firm`s overall performance, and little is known regarding the internal composition and complementarities between intellectual capital management and other organisational capabilities. Nowadays, modern management practices are considered as a strategic means of competitive advantage. From the resource-based point of view, the value of resources does not only reside in the resources themselves but also in the way they are deployed. Therefore, capabilities can also be seen themselves as intangible resources. Therefore, apart from the lack of theoretical background and contextual information, general intellectual capital studies suffer from the availability of practical case studies about how to manage them. This issue is becoming even more prominent in case of universities; where it is coupled with the dichotomous of the definition of perceived/expected value of intellectual capital in higher education sectors.
For many, the intellectual capital of universities assumed to be in its highest level of excellence, while new researches show that universities false to achieve expected innovativeness goals. This issue needs more attention from higher education policy makers since nowadays it is more expected that universities facilitate the spread and transfer of new knowledge and technology to the business world, while adopting more businesslike approaches and becoming more outward-looking. With this aim, some third generation universities have established or supported formation of science parks near their campuses as an structure for fostering knowledge and technology transfer and application of scarce research resources to increase the dynamism between the between the academic world and the business world. Generally it is expected that science parks contribute to the regional development by fostering the growth of knowledge-based firms, advocating relationships and networking among large companies and SMEs, and providing the linkage opportunities between firms and R&D institutions and universities.
Many researchers and economists have linked output from science parks and business incubators to economic growth indicators, such as job and wealth creation in developed and developing countries. From this prospective, it seems that the definition of science park shares certain similarities with the concept of the business ecosystem where the focus is to build an extensive network of partners that can enable companies to innovate faster, at lower cost, while enhancing their tangible and intangible assets, and create new value through an increased number and variety of information, knowledge flows and services available to them. Considering the knowledge intensive nature of onsite SMEs, researchers have indicated that intellectual capital is likely to be the key sources of sustainable competitive advantage for SMEs. Therefore, science park capabilities in localising the knowledge spillover and providing networking opportunities become a critical source for development of intellectual capital stocks in onsite SMEs. Therefore, SMEs` benefits will be enhanced if intellectual capital management practices can be captured, learned, codified, applied, developed and transferred through co-evolution and co-opetition opportunities, and via the innovation platform of science park business ecosystem. Now, what if universities as an important role players in such business ecosystems fail to manage their intellectual capital stock, or do not continuously develop their intellectual capital management capabilities?
On both universities and companies sides, many executives and managers don’t even know that intellectual capital management exists, or that it is the solution to many issues concerning improving organisational efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation. There are many intellectual capital management failures to point to; perhaps more failures than successes. Does intellectual capital management then have, or even need, a future? If so, what are the best practices in managing intellectual capital in both academic and business eras? This book is a response to the fact that on the whole, universities and SMEs have grappled with, but not yet mastered, intellectual capital management.
The central motivation for assembling the contributions in this book on the intellectual capital management derives from the observation that very few universities and located knowledge intensive small and medium sized businesses on universities science parks appear to be inclined to explain what intellectual capital is or how it works socially, organizationally or economically. This book has pulled together number of leading researchers from a range of intellectual capital management studies disciplines in one convenient volume. The chapters in this book include the selected and most up-to-date ideas, concepts, practices and case studies on the subject of intellectual capital management, particularly in higher education, science and technology, submitted to the 5th International Conference on Intellectual Capital Management. The overall objective is to inform the higher education policy makers and entrepreneurial individuals about the importance of intellectual capital management and to provide practical but principled guidance for enhancing such capabilities. The mission is to condense emerging IC theory and to distill it into actionable form of immediate relevance and use by potential audiences.
Jalil Khavand Kar
September, 2013
[1] Sveiby, Karl-Erik. (1989), The Invisible Balance Sheet; Key indicators for accounting, control and valuation of know-how companies, Stockholm: The Konrad Group. P.12.
[2] Sveiby, Karl-Erik, Accessible via: (http://www.sveiby.com/articles/IntangibleMethods.htm)
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Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgement xv
About the Authors xvii
Section One: Concepts, Definitions and Frameworks
Chapter. 1: Intellectual Capital, Higher Education, Science Parks and Techno based Enterprises
Jalil Khavand Kar 3
Chapter. 2: Knowledge Management: What It Really Means and How We Should Go About It?
Shafqat Farooq 11
Chapter. 3: Knowledge Creation based on Communities: The Japanese Approach
Pierre-Marie Fayard 31
Section Two: Higher Education
Chapter. 4: The Local Economic Impact of Higher Education Institutions in Hungary
Balázs Kotosz 45
Chapter. 5: Knowledge Management between Colleges and Industry: A Case Study in Turkey
Asaf Varol and Cihan Varol 61
Chapter. 6: Human Capital Management through Entrepreneurial Education at Higher Education Institutions - Myth or Reality?
Sana Ahmed 77
Chapter. 7: Intellectual Capital and Internationalization of Entrepreneurial Universities
Hiroko Kawamorita, Aidin Salamzadeh and Saeed Jafari Moghadam 87
Chapter. 8: Using Appreciative Inquiry in Developing Intellectual Capital in Mihail Kogalniceanu University
Ștefan Antonio SANDU 111
Section Three: Entreprise
Chapter. 9: Knowledge Management Strategies in Technopreneurial Firms
Kavoos Mohannak 139
Chapter. 10: Knowledge Management as a Learning Process to Upgrade Strategic Capabilities: Case study of micro-firms network in Southern Brazil
Pierre-Marie Fayard, Alsones Balestrin 159
Chapter. 11: Human Resource Accounting – Relevance to SMEs
Rolla Krishna Priya 169
Chapter. 12: Intellectual Capital Disclosure in Financial Reports of Nigerian Companies
Ramat Titilayo Salman, Kabiru Isa Dandago and Binta Kabir Isa 185
Chapter. 13: Globalized Information Management
Agha Syed Ayub Shah Bukhari, Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah and Jawairya Bukhari 211
Chapter. 14: Organizational Brain Drain - Nipping in the bud, a Panacea for SME Success
Mujtaba M. Momin 231
Chapter. 15: Challenges of Global Marketing Communication
Intercultural Marketing
Judit Mátyás 249
Chapter. 16: Economic Development and Intellectual Capital in Georgia
Eka Gegeshidze 261
Section Four: Case Reports
Perspectives on Development of Intellectual Property in Georgia
George Chiladze 273
On Clusters: External and Internal Perspectives
Ifor Ffowcs-Williams 291
Sobre o autor
Jalil Khavand Kar (Ph.D.), Zanjan Science and Technology Park– IASBS
Jalil Khavandkar is Founder of Zanjan Science & Technology Park-IASBS, Visiting professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran and chairman of the International Conference on Intellectual Capital Management (IICM). Jalil holds a PhD in Knowledge Management, and has worked widely across the science and innovation arenas for the past 40 years. Jalil has taught at various universities, and he is now Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran. He is the author of over 100 scientific and technical publications, and has received national awards for his achievements in entrepreneurship and technology management. In 2011, he was named the National Technology Manager of the Year, and in 2005, the National ICT Researcher of the Year.
