Is intellectual capitalism the future wealth of organisations?

Abstract

This article examines the future of intellectual capitalism. It is concluded that intellectual capital has the potential to become the primary wealth creator in most business organisations. The premise for this conclusion is that the knowledge intensive economy experienced by most companies today makes it increasingly difficult to gain a competitive advantage through traditional and tangible competitive weapons alone. It is however clear that the business case for intellectual capitalism must demonstrate sustained earnings as a result of investments in intellectual matters, and it remains to be seen if this will happen in all industries. Intellectual capitalism also needs to mature as a system before intellectual capital will be more measurable, accountable, risk controllable, thereby more manageable, but the progress of such work is slow for the time being. The most important challenge for intellectual capitalism is to develop the necessary organisational platform of social capital, on which intellectual capital can grow. Business leaders wanting to capitalise on their organisation’s intellectual assets, must develop the culture of their organisation. This is not easily done, and cannot be achieved by investing in another knowledge management system or waiting passively for standard setters to come up with new accounting methods for intellectual capital.

Citation

Karp, T. (2003), "Is intellectual capitalism the future wealth of organisations?", Foresight, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636680310494726