Editorial

Citation

Bontis, N. and Bart, C.K. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jic.2007.25008daa.001

Editorial

The papers in this Special Issue highlight some the most cutting edge research in the field of intellectual capital as it pertains to strategic enterprise valuation. All of the selected papers in this issue deal with the multi-faceted perspective of evaluating intangible assets. As a collection, this issue sets the groundwork for many years of future hypothesis development and testing. The authors in this Special Issue examine the knowledge-intensive enterprise from a variety of functional perspectives and various international contexts. There are studies included from Australia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Russia, Scotland, and Spain.

The first paper, by Manfred Bornemann and Kay Alwert, examines German guidelines for intellectual capital reporting. Building on established self-assessment methodologies from quality management and concepts of system dynamics, an action research design was applied to develop an intellectual capital reporting framework. The authors of this paper were also recipients of the Best Paper Award at the 9th World Congress on Intellectual Capital and Innovation hosted by McMaster University.

Gerhard Kristandl and Nick Bontis examine the impact of voluntary disclosure on cost of equity capital and risk premium estimates in a temporal setting. In this empirical research study the authors develop two disclosure indices and test them on 95 publicly listed companies from Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. An expected negative relationship is found between the level of forward-oriented information and COEC (cost of equity capital), and an unexpected positive relationship between the level of historical information and COEC.

As a conceptual extension of Ante Pulic’s pioneering VAIC model, Jamal Nazari and Irene Herremans provide a theoretical discussion designed to push the measurement of intellectual capital into a more rigorous and comprehensive domain. By recognizing the most influential elements of IC on organizational performance, they aim to help organizations understand better the organizational capabilities they possess.

A challenging problem for knowledge-based enterprises relates to the ability of employees to collaborate and share information with one another. Alexander Serenko, Nick Bontis and Timothy Hardie propose a theory clarifying the negative relationship between organizational unit size and knowledge flows referred to as Gita’s Rule. They propose that 150 employees represents a general breaking point, after which knowledge sharing reduces due largely to increased complexity in the formal structure, weaker interpersonal relationships, lower trust, decreased connective efficacy, and less effective communication.

The fifth paper in this Special Issue is written by Christiaan Stam. His paper describes the development of a method based on the Design Sciences paradigm. In order to increase the objectivity of the research findings, and in order to test the transferability of the method, this article suggests a methodology for beta testing of the concept of knowledge productivity.

Although much of the extant literature on intellectual capital is published in English and focuses on the Western world, much can be learned by seeking guidance from an Asian viewpoint. Daniel Andriessen and Marien van den Boom start a dialogue about differences between Western and Eastern cultures in the way they conceptualize knowledge and discuss the implications of these differences for a global intellectual capital theory and practice.

Sanjoy Bose and Keith Thomas examine the issue of measuring performance in relation to a major Australian company, the Fosters Brewing Group. During this case analysis, a newly appointed CEO reversed a decline in performance by adopting, among other initiatives, the Balanced Scorecard approach to management.

Lorne Switzer and Yanfen Huang study whether small and mid-cap mutual fund performance is related to fund manager human capital characteristics, including tenure, investment experience, education (MBA designation), professional training (CFA), and gender. Based on a sample of 1,004 funds, an optimal size of managed mutual funds is determined to range between US$1.43 billion and US$3.89 billion.

The ninth paper in this Special Issue is written by Christopher Bart. He aims to determine whether significant differences exist between secular and faith-based hospitals in terms of specific mission statement components and mission-related performance variables. One hundred and thirty top managers from a sample of 515 Canadian hospitals responded to a comprehensive questionnaire investigating 23 mission statement components and seven mission performance outcome measures in this study.

George Tovstiga and Ekaterina Tulugurova present and discuss research that investigates the impact of intellectual capital practices on enterprise performance in small innovative enterprises (SIEs) in the St Petersburg region in Russia. The research reported on in this paper brings together the unique combination of research related to the resource-based view of the firm in the setting of small innovative enterprises in a transitional economy environment.

The key purpose of the next article is to provide an understanding of the rationale for, and an assessment of, public policy intervention to alleviate a perceived market failure in the area of intellectual asset management by firms. Robert Huggins and Maria Weir utilize secondary data to construct an intellectual asset index for UK regions. This is followed by an assessment of public policy intervention mainly reliant on data captured through semi-structured interviews.

Eric Kong examines five key strategic management concepts including industrial organisation (I/O), resource-based view (RBV), knowledge-based view (KBV), Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and intellectual capital (IC) within the non-profit context and determines which one is most applicable in the non-profit sector.

In the final article in this Special Issue, Yolanda Ramírez, Carmen Lorduy and José Antonio Rojas review of the most important intellectual capital management initiatives at Spanish public universities. The study offers practical help to university administrators in developing the means to identify, measure, manage and value their intangible assets.

We would like to acknowledge the support of four student volunteers who helped in the processing and administration of several hundred papers that led to this Special Issue: Ashima Bhatt, Vikram Kaloe, Melissa Marvyn and Josh Grant. We also invite you all to participate at the McMaster World Congress in the future. Please be sure to visit our website at http://worldcongress.mcmaster.ca for further information.

Nick Bontis, Christopher K. BartManagement of Innovation and Technology Research Centre, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada