Assessing knowledge assets in professional service firms: Proposing a model of intellectual capital

Abstract

Knowledge assets are key organizational factors responsible of sustained competitive advantages in knowledge-intensive industries, characterized by high degrees of environmental turbulence, complexity, and dynamism. Thus, the knowledge audit is a management technique that provides the necessary structure by identifying the way in which employees use information and knowledge in order to perform their tasks. In this sense, scientific and professional literature has provided numerous proposals for measuring firm's knowledge stocks or intellectual capital. Nevertheless, empirical evidence stills being necessary in the field and empirically supported models in different contexts for classification and measurement of firm's intellectual capital are not very common. Using an "ad hoc" questionnaire, a field work has been developed in order to explore the nature and measurement of intellectual capital blocks in professional service firms.