The Value of Human Resources in Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management

摘要

It is recognised and accepted by business leaders and academic scholars alike that people (human resources) are an organisation's most critical assets in the contemporary knowledge economy. While this may be true, this rhetoric is often not matched by the reality of employment practices related to this important yet ambiguous resource. In times of bottom line financial pressures, it is this resource that is often the first to be marginalised because of the dominance of the cost as opposed to the value mentality of human resources in conventional financial accounting measures. The central issue is that knowledge, ability, and motivation (which are essential components of employee value) and their interrelationships with relational and structural components of intellectual capital are intangible. Therefore, they are difficult to measure in conventional business metric in terms that are readily understood by and acceptable to major external and internal business stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to review the current situation with respect to the question of people as valuable resources in the intellectual capital and knowledge management paradigms. Our contention is that human resources are a pivot to the success or otherwise of modern business enterprises, irrespective of their size. The empirical basis of this paper is achieved by presenting research data made by the authors on the relationship between psychosocial variables and human resource practices on behaviours associated with intellectual capital and knowledge management (ICKM). A positive relationship has been found between attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy on knowledge sharing behaviour. Besides this, a positive correlation was found between the concept of psychological capital and knowledge sharing. Preliminary results will be also presented on a current research study on the influence of perceived organizational support and knowledge sharing. With respect to human resource practices, the paper includes a review of research undertaken on management's perception on the importance of measuring human resources, some organisations' attempts to achieve this, and the current barriers towards the measurement of value. Current research on the relationship of knowledge sharing and human resource practices will also be presented. The paper concludes with a discussion on the authors' observations of the value of human resources in the current state of the theoretical and practical considerations of intellectual capital and knowledge management, and their suggestions on a way forward in this developing area of ICKM.