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Attention focusing on intangible forms of capital is increasing in both research and practice. Lev and Zambon (2003) write in the introduction of a special issue of the European Accounting Review, “We strongly believe that intangibles are the major drivers of company growth” (p. 597). Intellectual capital seems to have led the way in the conceptual development of intangible values. However, other forms of intangible capital are being defined, including: organizational, human, relationship, social, political, innovation, and collaborative. This volume consists of papers that focus on the latter. We broadly define collaborative capital as the organizational assets that enable people to work together well. It is manifested in such outcomes as increased innovation and creativity, commitment and involvement, flexibility and adaptability, leveraging knowledge, and enhancing learning.

Organizations are reorganizing into collaborative subunits or teams in order to generate innovative ideas and stay ahead of the competition. Traditional control systems were established to direct employees and prevent control problems, such as fraud or theft, and were designed for vertically managed systems where managers and supervisors made decisions and their subordinates performed tasks. As companies evolve into a team-based structure, decisions are made at lower levels. Restructuring for teams makes information more available and decisions more transparent. Traditional controls no longer apply and can be detrimental to empowerment and the generation of innovative ideas. With increased empowerment there will be a need for different controls and maybe even more control. Innovation can thrive when collaboration takes place and collaboration can occur best when teams are empowered. This chapter presents three separate domains – models of empowerment and innovation, decision-influencing and decision-facilitating information, and management control systems – and illustrates how they interact in a holistic way to either enhance innovative culture or inhibit the generation of ideas.

Sternberg & Lubart (1991); Sternberg & Lubart (1992).

Michael Beyerlein is Director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations (www.workteams.unt.edu) and Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of North Texas. His research interests include all aspects of collaborative work systems, organization transformation, work stress, creativity/innovation, intangible capital, knowledge management and the learning organization, and complex adaptive systems. He has published in a number of journals and has been a member of the editorial boards for TEAM Magazine, Team Performance Management Journal, and Quality Management Journal. Currently, he is senior editor of the Elsevier annual series of books Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams and the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Work Systems Series. He has authored or edited 15 books. His most recent are Guiding the Journey to Collaborative Work Systems: A Strategic Design Workbook (2003) and Complex Collaboration (2004). He has been involved in projects at the Center for Collaborative Organizations (formerly, The Center for the Study of Work Teams) with such companies as Boeing, Shell, NCH, AMD, Raytheon, First American Financial, Westinghouse, and Xerox and with government agencies such as Veterans Affairs, DCMAO, EPA, and the City of Denton.

Based on a four-factor leadership typology, this theoretical chapter proposes four alternative models to investigate how collaborative capital moderates the relationships between leadership and innovation. Beyerlein, Beyerlein, and Kennedy (2004) define collaborative capital as “how well people work together toward shared goals and outcomes.” In this chapter, we focus on empowerment as an important manifestation of collaborative capital. That is, first, empowerment enhances collaboration across vertical hierarchical lines through sharing of decision-making authority. Also, since empowerment is typically implemented as a team form of organizational structure, empowered teams enhance collaboration through the process of decentralized team decision-making. Thus, the accumulation of successful empowerment and the qualities of empowered team member represent the collaborative capital. Specifically, the models suggest that empowerment may function as a partial mediator, or as a moderator, or as both, in the basic relationship between transformational leadership and innovation. In addition, although transformational leadership and empowering leadership elicit different attitudes and behaviors of team members that may facilitate innovation, the interactions between these outcomes will maximize the effects of leadership on innovation. The implications of these observations and the possible directions for future research are discussed.

Michael M. Beyerlein is director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations (www.workteams.unt.edu) and professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of North Texas. His research interests include all aspects of collaborative work systems, organization transformation, creativity/innovation, knowledge management and the learning organization, and science education. He has published in a number of research journals and has been a member of the editorial boards for TEAM Magazine, Team Performance Management Journal, and Quality Management Journal. Currently, he is the senior editor of the Elsevier annual series Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams and the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Work Systems series. He has authored or edited 18 books. His most recent books include: Guiding the Journey to Collaborative Work Systems: A Strategic Design Workbook (2004) and Collaborative Capital (2005). He has been involved in projects at the Center for Collaborative Organizations (formerly, The Center for the Study of Work Teams) with such companies as Boeing, Shell, NCH, AMD, Intel, Raytheon, First American Financial, Westinghouse, and Xerox and with government agencies such as Veterans Affairs, DCMAO, EPA, and the City of Denton.

Intellectual capital (IC) and social capital (SC), as forms of intangible value in organizations, are crucial assets in today's volatile business environment. Efforts to retain and develop these intangibles are becoming more deliberate and disciplined. However, organizations fail to recognize the relationship between organizational distress and the loss and/or reduction of intangible value. The loss of intangible value may potentially impact an organization with equal or greater damage than the loss of more tangible value. IC and SC generate many outcomes beneficial to the individual and the organization. These benefits are reduced when stress of employees becomes excessive and damaging. The relationship between the health of an organization and the degree of impact of distress serves as a lingering threat to organizational financial resources. Managers must build upon the growing knowledge from research and practice to help organizations account for the costs of organizational distress, translate the importance of intangible value into tangible terms, and garner support for developing IC and SC to obtain business objectives. Deliberate and disciplined effort to build collaborative capital can facilitate the growth of IC and SC which minimize the damage of organizational distress.

This chapter considers the role of technology transfer intermediaries (TTIs) in the processes of innovation in networks involving universities, research and development centres, and business firms from an international perspective. A diversity of types of TTIs is recognised in terms of their particular interests in the operation of innovation processes and the conditions they impose in transactions involving intellectual property. It will identify the various objectives of sponsoring stakeholders as differentiating the missions and accountabilities and, in turn, determining the focus and roles of different types of TTIs and the interactions and networking between them, both formal and informal.

In discussion, the chapter will propose that the significance of systemic influence on the processes of technology transfer and innovation should be researched at two levels. At the micro-level of personal interactions, examining how systemic influences shape tacit knowledge transfer between and learning by individuals engaged in research and innovation processes. Second, at the level of national cultures, examining the ways in which the cultural context institutionalises patterns of innovation and technology transfer networking.