Intellectual Capital

IntroductIon Today's economy is characterized by a rapid rate of change, globalization, and knowledge-intensive products. This makes knowledge management (KM) vital to organizations. The resource-based view of the firm postulates that a firm's profitability is not only a function of its market and competitive position but also a function of its internal capabilities and know-how in combining its resources to deliver products and services and to enhance organizational performance (Alavi, 2000). The goal of an effective KM strategy should be to enhance the creation, transfer, and utilization of all types of organizational knowledge (Alavi, 2000). Corporations not only realize that knowledge is the critical resource but also try to manage organizational knowledge more intensely and effectively. For example, Stewart (1997) defined intellectual capital (IC) as the intellectual material—knowledge, information, intellectual property, and experience—that can be put to use for creating wealth. identified the importance of intellectual capital (IC) with Bontis (2002a) indicating that human capital is a major component of IC. Human capital, as well as other components of IC (e.g., innovation capital) is an integral part of Finally, it does the organization little good if effective KM does not lead to success. This success can be defined as how well an organization engages in KM to innovate and reduce uncertainty. Ultimately, an organization should hope to achieve a competitive advantage. While there is no clear division between KM and IC, there is an intuitive link between them. Numerous researchers have investigated 2048 Intellectual Capital knowledge components, KM issues, and success achievement in organizations. However, none has included IC components into an integrated research framework. This article presents such a framework.