A Framework to Measure Intellectual Capital

Abstract

New technologies have changed the structure of companies shifting the focus of creating value from material resources to intangibles. The competitive advantage is increasingly reliant on the presence of specific intangibles such as knowledge, experience, communication skills that are the main source of competitive advantage. Among the intangibles based on knowledge, intellectual capital certainly occupies a prominent place. In recent years the increasing complexity that characterized the business management influenced companies to adopt new models of reporting and accounting, taking into account issues and intangible factors not considered so far with the right attention. The objective of this work, starting with a review of the existing literature on intellectual capital, intends not only to identify the most important intangibles within enterprises and classify them according to the three blocks which intellectual capital is divided (human capital, structural and relational capital), but also to show a number of indicators that can help them measure. Therefore the aim of the work is to build an integrated framework containing appropriate intellectual capital indicators useful to represent and measure this resource within companies. The sample is made up of the Italian companies listed on the stock exchange operating in different sectors, for the period 2011–2014.