Intellectual capital issues have undergone significant development since the beginning of the 1990s. The increasing difference between company market value and company book value has prompted academics and practitioners to consider the concept of "intellectual capital" as a key determinant of the process of value creation for shareholders, managers, and society as a whole. In this paper we define intellectual capital as the knowledge and other intangibles that produce or create value in the present and knowledge and other intangibles that will produce or create value in the future.
The development of intellectual capital theory has primarily been guided by the ideas and thoughts of a handful of influential practitioners, Karl Erik Sveiby (1997), RS Kaplan (Kaplan and Norton, 1992) and Leif Edvinson (Edvinson and Malone, 1997). These pioneers established the foundations of the way in which intangible factors determine the success of companies. In the words of Andriessen (2001), the pioneers established the basis of the "intellectual capital standard theory". Their respective models - "Intangible Assets Monitor" (IAM) (Sveiby, 1997) and "Skandia Navigator" (Edvinson and Malone, 1997) - are representative of the assumptions, principles, and foundations of the intellectual capital standard theory.
However, later contributions from other academics and practitioners - such as the "Value Explorer" (Andriessen and Tissen, 2000) and the "Intellectual Capital Benchmarking System (ICBS)" (Viedma, 2001) - have developed and refined the standard theory. Today, this theory is the pre-eminent guide to the management of intangible assets, and has facilitated success through sustainable competitive advantage for leading companies and organisations.
An analysis of the representative models of the prevailing theory, together with those of the alternative new theory, followed by a synthesis of the two and the integration of new views and contributions, has enabled the present paper to advance a first comprehensive theory of intellectual capital.
Keywords:
intellectual capital, knowledge management, strategic management, models, paradigms, theory.
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