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The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a meso-level (organizational) social capital theoretical approach to public relations. A theory and conceptualization of social capital as a resource- and exchange-based function of public relations is proposed. Here it is argued that public relations professionals serve as the managers of intangible resources on behalf of organizations. These intangibles serve as social capital for organizations and are managed through strategic, goal-directed communication behaviors. Social capital is conceptualized alongside other forms of capital that contribute to organizational advantage. The author proposes a conceptual social capital model of public relations and argues that the strategic management of intangible resources as social capital offers an ontology for public relations.

The author employed a process of open-system theory building. Extensive research from multi-disciplinary areas of scholarship – namely, sociology, business, and public relations – formed the basis for the conceptualized model and propositions.

Public relations theory is narrowly defined and does not offer an adequate ontology. This paper extends and refines existing public relations scholarship surrounding social capital to focus on competitive advantages for the organization. This paper uses input from the larger fields of sociology and business, while contextualizing social capital within the public relations scholarship. The result is a resource- and exchange-based social capital model of public relations and propositions for further theory building and empirical analyses.

The public relations discipline often struggles to demonstrate return-on-investment for organizations. The social capital model of public relations offers support for the capital generation and maintenance role of public relations for organizational advantage.

This paper represents one of the first comprehensive attempts at developing a meso-level social capital theory of public relations focused on intangible resource management for the organization.

Intangible assets are widely considered as key success factors for the growth of businesses in various economies. While the relationship between intangible assets or resources and business growth or performance have been extensively researched in advanced economies, there is limited understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon in developing/emerging markets. In Ghana specifically, there is a dearth of research on the impact of intangible assets on the growth of women businesses. Consequently, this paper aims to investigate how intangible assets available to women entrepreneurs contribute to the performance of their businesses.

Using an exploratory sequential research design (a type of mixed methods design), the data collection was organized into two main phases. The first phase was the qualitative phase where nine respondents were interviewed, and the responses were analysed using thematic analysis. The second phase was the quantitative phase where some 264 questionnaires were collected and analysed using multiple regression analysis.

Specifically, the findings focused on three intangible resources: social capital, human capital and reputational capital. The study found that, social, human and reputational capital all significantly contributed to the growth of women businesses. The study also showed a positive and significant effect of social capital, reputational capital and human capital on business growth.

These findings have implications for women entrepreneurs in Ghana. If they must grow their businesses, then using intangible assets alone may not be able to deliver growth in the required proportions. Serious consideration must be given to the significant impact of intra and extra industry networking and the social competency skills of the entrepreneur. The rationality of this assertion hinges on the findings made from this study that social competence can be effectively used to further enhance the effects of the value of one’s intangible assets.

Policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa and specifically Ghana have accorded high priority to private sector entrepreneurship towards reduction in the dependence of the citizenry on government for jobs. Perhaps, this paper adds to the growing body of knowledge on female entrepreneurship in Ghana to understand how intangible assets available to women entrepreneurs contribute to the performance of their businesses.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of intangible resources in the performance management of European hospitals. The extent of the awareness of intangible resources as performance drivers is examined in five different European hospitals, from both the private and the public sector.

An inductive approach was taken based on open ended, semi‐structured interviews with key informants.

Research results indicate that hospitals' managers realise the importance of intangible resources. In particular these relate to three different areas, namely the management of hospitals' human resources, the creation of relationships within and outside the organisation, and the measurement of individual performance.

This research is exploratory in nature. Further and deeper research is needed which focuses on the identification of the most relevant resources in hospitals and their impact on performance. Both will then justify the integration of these intangible resources in performance measurement systems.

This research gives insights into the awareness of intangible resources in different European hospitals. It explores the use of intangible resources in performance measurement systems. Much of the research in this area has been concentrated on the private commercial sector, linked to creating shareholder value, and this paper adds to the newly developing research looking at hospital settings.

The purpose of this paper is to construct and propose a definition for intangibles derived from the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm for use in academic research and practical applications.

Intangibles are defined as a subset of corporate resources. In this paper, various definitions for intangibles are tested against the RBV framework.

The majority of definitions in the extant literature are (implicitly or explicitly) in synchronization with the RBV. Thus, it is possible to find and propose a common definition for intangibles.

Some researchers argue that the field is still in its embryonic stages and thus the concepts might still be too fresh in order to find a stable common definition.

The paper offers a conceptual lens through which one can clearly link intangibles to strategy and offers a proposed definition of intangibles that incorporates a meta‐review of the literature.

The paper shows that it is in fact possible to accommodate various definitions of intangibles under one common framework and propose a unified characterization.

Over the last three decades, the role of intellectual capital (IC) in ensuring an organization’s competitiveness has increased significantly. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the evolution of the concept of (IC) by showing its transformation from resource to capital, while offering a new perspective on the structure of (IC).

The formation and development of (IC) is studied on the basis of literature review, logical and comparative analysis. The new structural components of (IC) are defined upon studying the relationships of the relevant concepts and the content of the concept at organizational level today.

In the scientific literature, (IC) is mainly viewed as a resource or set of resources an organization uses for creation of competitive advantage and value. Using the information gathered about different views on (IC), this study shows the development of the sources of the organization’s competitiveness: from resource to (IC).

This study offers the authors’ view on the nature of the concept of (IC) showing (IC) as a business asset. The analysis of the concept is focused at organizational level.

The study explains the differences between the interrelated concepts: knowledge, competence, performance and (IC). The authors offer an improved definition of (IC) by showing the evolution of its content and offer their own approach to the structure of (IC) that might facilitate tracking this asset in the organization’s accounts and promote effective management of the asset.

This article attempts to contribute to the development of a positive theory on the management of intangibles by building a model that describes the process followed by business firms willing to implement a system for the management of intangibles. The study reveals that companies usually take three steps: the identification of critical intangibles related to value creation, the measurement of those intangibles by means of a set of indicators and, finally, the monitoring of intangible resources and activities.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in an attempt to cover the gap in research on intellectual capital (IC) applied to SMEs. The paper informs the debate on the importance of IC by providing empirical evidence of SME managers' perceptions about the importance and contribution of intangible assets to their businesses.

Questionnaires were sent to New Zealand SMEs investigating managers' perceptions about the importance of and the contributions that intangible asset components make to their businesses, and to assess their familiarity with the term intellectual capital (IC) and their preferences in using the term IC versus intangible assets. The results pertaining to the importance of intangible assets were statistically analysed.

This paper informs that the broad assumption that intangible assets are important and are value drivers of business' success is valid for small and medium enterprises. The majority of respondents perceive intangible asset components to be essential, very important and important to the success of their business and that these components collectively make several contributions to their businesses. Based on average rating, customer satisfaction ranked as the most important and thereafter customer loyalty, corporate reputation, product reputation and employee know‐how. A minority of respondents indicated that only a few components are not very important and not important at all, the least important component being distribution agreements, followed by employee education and relationships with investors. The majority of respondents are familiar with the term IC, and the same number prefer to use the term “intangible assets” as those preferring to use the term IC.

Providing evidence of SME managers' perceptions of the importance and contributions of intangible assets is essential to raise awareness among SME managers in understanding, identifying and managing intangible assets that are important value drivers for their businesses. Such awareness is essential in particular in countries where SMEs make up a significant proportion of business and employment. The results of this study may be a benchmark for SME managers unfamiliar and ignorant about the topic of this research.

This paper is the first providing empirical evidence as to SME managers' perceptions about the importance of and the contributions of intangible assets to their businesses, as well as about their familiarity with the IC concept and preference in using IC terminology.

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

This study aims to explore the mechanism by which intellectual capital and corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence the sustainable competitive performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the mediating role of organizational innovation in an emerging economy.

The data collection was conducted through a survey completed by 208 owners and top managers operating in the service, trading and manufacturing sector SMEs, positioned within twin cities of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized for data analysis.

The results of the study suggest that intellectual capital and CSR have a markedly positive influence on the sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. The organizational innovation appears to mediate these relationships.

This study pioneers research on the links between intellectual capital, CSR organizational innovation and sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. The current research contributes to the literature by defining intellectual capital and CSR as an antecedent and organizational innovation as an intervening variable for the sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. In addition, this study underlines the significance of intellectual capital and CSR activities as valuable intangible assets for the achievement of sustainable competitive performance of SMEs.