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The knowledge and skills of individuals are widely considered to represent an important component of a firm's intellectual capital. The value of individuals’ knowledge is also recognised from a capability‐based perspective. While routines and capabilities are considered to act as the interface for the knowledge of individuals, an important and related issue is to examine how and to what extent individuals’ knowledge acts as the source of knowledge for the creation of firm‐based routines and capabilities. Four firms across two online sectors, online broking and ISPs, are selected for the empirical case study research. The findings highlight the importance of the role of prior organisational experience in the development of new routines and capabilities. It is shown that variations in the role of prior organisational experience across firms and sectors are better understood in respect of the architectural and component knowledge of which managerial knowledge consists.

This introductory editorial to the special issue “IC at the crossroads: theory and research” explains the rationale and background to the studies. In addition it outlines reasons why the field of intellectual (IC) capital is at the crossroads. It seems that awareness of the importance of IC has been created. It is now the role of researchers as well as practitioners to move to the next level. This next level involves issues around taxonomies as well as research methodologies. In order to move on, precise definitions of concepts such as IC, better justifications of why organizations need to measure and manage IC, and increased clarity about terms such as measurement, assessment, or valuation are needed. In addition, more rigorous research methods are needed in order to test and validate existing theories in the field.