Intellectual Capital

Successful companies rely on traditional factors of production for their survival. Yet the most important and sustainable sources of competitive advantage-knowledge, customer relations, supply-on-demand, micromanagement, and other forms of "intellectual capital"-often don't even appear on many companies' reporting systems. The results of this lack of attention to intellectual capital can be disastrous for companies and their stockholders.Providing an organizational system that helps managers maximize the flow of intellectual capital in their companies,Intellectual Capitalpresents the insights gained by leading experts from the practice, research, and consulting side of business management. Starting with a definition of intellectual capital and it main components, the book offers a step-by-step "process model" to rooting out corporate inefficiency at all levels. Illustrated with vivid case studies, the book also covers the latest thinking and practices of the "second generation" of intellectual capital practices, from consolidating intellectual capital measures into a single "IC Index" to linking them with shareholder value creation systems.

Leif Edvinsson is Vice President and Corporate Director of IC and Skandia Future Centers in Sweden.