Intellectual Capital Practices of SMEs and MNCs: A Knowledge Management Perspective

摘要

Intellectual capital(IC) -from intellectual property and patents through staff technical skills to relationships and networking with customers- has been identified as a critical business success factor and as a source of competitive advantage. In fact, the key conjecture in IC research is that IC is more likely to be the key source of a firm's competitive advantage than tangible resources. Yet the empirical evidence on the causal relationship between IC and organizational value has provided mixed results. This is due to the fact that IC is a complex phenomenon of interactions, transformations and complementarities and thus IC measurements are difficult and often vague. Divergent, even suspect, standards of recording IC practice worldwide and forced generalizations across business sectors and regions at varied stages of development do exasperate the problem. This paper is based on the premise that IC praxis follows varied patterns exhibiting distinct characteristics across industry sectors, company types and geographical locations. Knowledge management and IC practices of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and multinational corporations (MNCs) are compared and contrasted to examine this premise. The thesis of this paper is that IC praxis will have to be customized for individual companies based on their particular traits and that the appropriate term for such an approach is mass customization of IC recommendations.