Relational capital and intellectual capital management at enterprises in transitional countries: The case of Vietnam

Abstract

The paper aims at investigating current status of relational capital (RC) management as a part of intellectual capital management among enterprises of emerging economies given the increasing importance of this intangible asset and very limited research in this context. With a sample of 189 enterprises through various sectors in Vietnam, statistical method was employed to shed light on how they have been managing their intellectual capital (IC) and, more importantly, five different RC factors, including customer relationships, supplier relationships, public relationships, investor relationships and partner relationships. The findings witnessed that relational capital is the strength of firms, with customer relationship and supplier relationship being top performing factors. Based on the results, several recommendations are proposed to improve the RC management capability in transitional countries. RC management should be linked to strategic management, in which RC strategy must emanate from and towards achieving the strategic goals of firms. However, RC strategy and its development plan need to be built based on a comprehensive analysis of business strategy, competitive strategy, and intellectual capital analysis. There is also a need to raise awareness and understanding among managers about RC. Enterprises need to apply many measures to improve RC management capacity of managers.