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The purpose of this paper is to tie together the insights from the body of research relating to economic complexity theory, structural holes, non-price based competition, and knowledge management. The insights relating to generating national prosperity are synthesised through an intellectual capital lens.

The paper uses literature review combined with insights from an Australian project on state-based economic complexity.

The connectivist and autopoietic epistemological paradigms are found to be most aligned with the need to manage transformation between organisational and human resources that will achieve causal ambiguity and hence inimitability. This inimitability forms the basis for achieving non-price based competition and if there is a rich network of economic agents that, both individually and collectively through collaboration, have these characteristics a large share of the economy can operate on the basis of non-priced based competition. If all these agents have an export focus the economic complexity of the economy will be high, and likely increasing, which will enable both the creation and the appropriation of large amounts of value and hence result in increasing national prosperity.

Findings are only relevant for OECD countries given the origins of the data used.

Managerial implications are outlined as are major implications for public policy.

This is the first time that these concepts are linked.

The intellectual capital literature has concentrated on issues of defining, measuring, and reporting intellectual capital. The underlying thesis is that as the economy becomes more reliant on intellectual assets management and measurement processes need to focus more on these types of assets to redress an overemphasis on monetary and physical assets. This article discusses intellectual capital concepts as a mechanism for strategic analysis and facilitator of the strategy‐formulation process. It briefly considers the nature of strategy, two major strands of strategic thinking, the external view and the resource‐based view, and the advantages of the intellectual capital approach. The authors argue that the intellectual capital approach has a number of advantages leading to more effective implementation and strategic performance measurement.

The purpose of this paper is to review the research into the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and business performance. The paper examines the change of the HR function into HRM taking on its current strategic role. Recent work on the links between HRM and business performance is reviewed highlighting the conclusion that while the links are not disputed by researchers using a variety of approaches, the ability to characterize definitive causal links has proved almost impossible. The techniques and resource‐based approach of intellectual capital (IC) may provide the key to quantifying the links but again, work to date has proved that it may not be possible to clearly separate HRM from other management actions to quantify the effects of HRM. A solution based on the IC approach involving rigorous measurement is suggested.

Knowledge Management is now one of the major driving forces of organizational change and wealth creation. This paper reviews some of the major concepts and approaches as discussed at a recent international congress on the subject. Beginning with an examination of some of the factors propelling the global knowledge economy, the paper then explores knowledge‐based organizational strategy, illustrated by a number of case studies from leading practitioners, including British Petroleum, Glaxo Wellcome, ICL, Nokia Telecommunications, the UK Post Office and Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. The concept of intellectual capital lies at the heart of Knowledge Management. Some companies define intellectual capital in terms of value creation, for others it is value extraction. The two different approaches, illustrated by Skandia and the Dow Chemical Company, are reviewed, along with a new tool for measuring intellectual capital.

Traditional return on investment analysis techniques like discounted cash flow (DCF) and net present value (NPV) fall short of providing adequate decision support in today’s turbulent environment. New techniques, grouped under the concept called “business value analysis” (BVA), show promise. These techniques include intellectual capital, real options valuation, business model dynamics, and synthetic markets. They extend DCF to include intangibles and other factors common to the digital economy. These techniques are just now emerging from research, and they are undergoing further development, refinement, and testing on the way to becoming widespread in practice. It’s unlikely any of these techniques will be a “silver bullet” that makes investments a sure thing, but they can improve business performance and the chances of success.

This conversation with Göran Roos explores leveraging the interrelated roles of intellectual capital and strategy in contemporary organizations. Roos has created frameworks which make the intangible of intellectual capital understood as a very real asset and to be cultivated, measured and appropriately exploited for competitive advantage. The conversation examines how to work with management to rethink strategies and practices to determine and utilize the drivers for intellectual capital growth, as well as how to rigorously valuate and effectively use intellectual resources throughout their enterprises to make significant differences. These approaches have been used in a wide variety of both private and public sector organizations around the world in a broad range of market segments.

This paper discusses the value of applying the intellectual capital perspective in strategic theory and application. It draws on the historic development of the strategy field, to introduce the concept of the intellectual capital perspective. The author argues that the intellectual capital perspective, in its latest form, has made a major contribution to our way of thinking and working with strategy, specifically in organizations with a high dependence of intellectual capital resources or a high dependence of resources that can be classified as intangible. The paper recommends that researchers and practitioners alike put the intellectual capital perspective to use to increase the awareness and value that it provides and also to provide insights into areas of research that would further improve the intellectual capital perspective.

The collapse of Enron was almost entirely unexpected and shockingly rapid. While the major cause of this and other mega meltdowns has been determined to be financial manipulation and questionable accounting practices, the fall of these organizations has also raised questions about whether, and to what extent, their intellectual capital/intangible asset intensive business models contributed to their failure. This paper examines three core issues affecting the role of intellectual capital that have been highlighted by Enron's business failure: the linked issues of the effect of moving from a more traditional trading model to an intangible intensive trading model and the requirements for a viable intellectual capital/intangibles business model; changes in the accounting framework to ensure the integrity of an intellectual capital/intangibles‐based organization; and the implications of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) mandated changes in measuring and managing for goodwill and intangibles