Intellectual Capital: Core asset for the third millennium

Rating:
Summary: Do We Really Know?
Review: Annie Brooking's book was published prior to Thomas A. Stewart's book which has the same title. Both are worthy of rigorous scrutiny because, although they share the same subject, they take entirely different approaches to it.

The subtitle of Brooking's book introduces her perspective on intellectual capital: "Core Asset for the Third Millennium Enterprise." She identifies four categories of assets: market (the potential an organization has due to market-related intangibles), intellectual property (know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, and various design rights), human-centered (talents, skills, experience, loyalty), and infrastructure (whatever brings order, safety, correctness, and quality to an organization).

Throughout Intellectual Capital, Brooking includes a number of "audits" which enable her reader to measure value of an organization's brand, name, backlog, distribution, collaboration, patent(s), copyright(s), design, trade secrets, human-centered assets, employee education, vocational qualification, work related knowledge, occupational assessment, work related competency, corporate learning, management philosophy, corporate culture, information technology systems, database, networking, IT management, and IC management.

Brooking explains HOW to make accurate measurements of these and other intangible assets, and, suggests HOW to manage them with meticulous care. The "Corporate Culture for Collaboration" audit in Chapter 6, all by itself, is well worth the price of the book.

Unless and until organizations accurately measure both their tangible and intangible assets, it will be impossible to determine the real-world value of those organizations. This is especially true as dot.com companies proliferate.

Rating:
Summary: Do We Really Know?
Review: Annie Brooking's book was published prior to Thomas A. Stewart's book which has the same title. Both are worthy of rigorous scrutiny because, although they share the same subject, they take entirely different approaches to it.

The subtitle of Brooking's book introduces her perspective on intellectual capital: "Core Asset for the Third Millennium Enterprise." She identifies four categories of assets: market (the potential an organization has due to market-related intangibles), intellectual property (know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, and various design rights), human-centered (talents, skills, experience, loyalty), and infrastructure (whatever brings order, safety, correctness, and quality to an organization).

Throughout Intellectual Capital, Brooking includes a number of "audits" which enable her reader to measure value of an organization's brand, name, backlog, distribution, collaboration, patent(s), copyright(s), design, trade secrets, human-centered assets, employee education, vocational qualification, work related knowledge, occupational assessment, work related competency, corporate learning, management philosophy, corporate culture, information technology systems, database, networking, IT management, and IC management.

Brooking explains HOW to make accurate measurements of these and other intangible assets, and, suggests HOW to manage them with meticulous care. The "Corporate Culture for Collaboration" audit in Chapter 6, all by itself, is well worth the price of the book.

Unless and until organizations accurately measure both their tangible and intangible assets, it will be impossible to determine the real-world value of those organizations. This is especially true as dot.com companies proliferate.

Rating:
Summary: Too good to be true. Another stunner from the mostress.
Review: Extraordinary how Annie sox it to them. Go gettem babe

Rating:
Summary: The Four Components of Intellectual Capital
Review: Intellectual capital is a truly critical topic for twenty-first century business.

As known, the subject of intellectual capital appeared on the business world in the 1990s. Patrick H.Sullivan writes, in his 'Value-Driven Intellectual Capital,' "this history actually began in the early 1980s, as managers, academics, and consultants around the world began to notice that a firm's intangible assets, its intellectual capital, were often a mojor determinant of the corporation's profit...By the mid 1990s it was becoming clear that there were two separate but related paths of thinking about intellectual capital. One path, the knowledge and brainpower path, focused on creating and expanding the firm's knowledge. The other path, the resource-based perspective, was concerned with how to create profits from a firm's unique combinations of intellectual and tangible resources."

In this context, Annie Brooking defines intellectual capital as the term given to the combined intangible assets which enable the company to function. And hence, she formulates her first IC concept as 'Enterprise = Tangible Assets + Intellectual Capital.' According to Brooking, the intelectual capital of an enterprise can be split into following four categories:

1. Market assets: all market related intangibles, including brands, customers, customer loyalty, company name, backlog, distribution channels, business collaborations, various contracts and agreements such as licensing, franchises and so on.

2. Intellectual property assets: know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, design rights, and trade and service marks.

3. Human-centred assets: education, vocational qualifications, work related knowledge, occupational assessments, psychometrics, and work related competencies.

4. Infrastructure assets: management philosophy, corporate culture, management processes, information technology systems, networking systems, and financial relations.

At last words, she says that "our method brings together intangible assets which most companies already have but fail to manage in a coherent way...Organizations that realize their ability to succeed in the third millennium will be dominated by intangible assets are already putting their intellectual capital teams together."

Highly recommended.

Recommended readings on Intellectual Capital:

* Johan Roos et.al. - Intellectual Capital

* Patrick H.Sullivan - Value-Driven Intellectual Capital

* Thomas A.Stewart - Intellectual Capital

* Leif Edvinsson and Michael S.Malone - Intellectual Capital

* Karl-Erik Sveiby - The New Organizational Wealth