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The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization
 
 
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The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization [Paperback]

Thomas A. Stewart (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 19, 2003
In Thomas A. Stewart’s bestselling first book, Intellectual Capital, he redefined the priorities of businesses around the world, demonstrating that the most important assets companies own today are often not tangible goods, equipment, financial capital, or market share, but the intangibles: patents, the knowledge of workers, and the information about customers and channels and past experience that a company has in its institutional memory. Now in his new book, The Wealth of Knowledge, Stewart--widely acknowledged as the world’s leading expert on working with intellectual capital in today’s knowledge economy--reveals how today’s companies are applying the concept of intellectual capital into day-to-day operations to dramatically increase their success in the marketplace.

Arguing that companies can make untold millions of dollars by managing knowledge more effectively--and save millions more--Stewart offers executives and managers compelling accounts of how leading companies around the world are successfully tackling the practical issues involved in today’s knowledge economy. The heart of the book is a revolutionary 4-step preocess that shows how to put intellectual capital to work to improve performance and profitablity, as well as manage knowledge processes. He goes on to discuss how companies can better utilize their current assets and enhance their knowledge resources for the future. Questioning many of the assumptions that have ruled business in the twentieth century, he addresses such critical and fundamental issues as why companies exist, how they should be organized and how people should be compensated. With his customary fearlessness and foresight, he plunges into the thick of the controversial arena of measuring and accounting, as well-an increasingly difficult task when a corporation’s assets are intangible.

The Wealth of Knowledge not only sets out the latest thinking in creating and managing knowledge assets, but provides a detailed course of action for corporations trying to navigate their way in the world of knowledge economy.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A century ago, business corporations were identified by their physical assets: real estate, buildings and machinery. Over the course of the next hundred years, management and investor attention shifted toward businesses' intangible property: brand names, patents, business relationships and employee culture. Stewart, Fortune columnist and author of the bestselling Intellectual Capital, argues this trend will continue through the 21st century, even as business law, practice and attitudes often ignore the intangibles in favor of concrete but less relevant physical assets. While not groundbreaking, his latest book offers a broad survey of business from the intellectual capitalist's perspective, from the basic economics of knowledge and business organization theory and management to selling and accounting for knowledge. Stewart could have fit this subject into a serious business magazine article; in expanding it, he simply adds a relentlessly upbeat mix of grand metaphors and detailed examples. Each chapter is packed with provocative, insightful material. The book's weakness is its dearth of theory and impatience with alternative views, and the chapters manage to logically follow one another without ever cohering enough to become more than the sum of their parts. The author's considerable rhetorical gifts also hide the fact that entire sections of the book do not really relate to the main thesis. Agent, Kris Dahl. (On-sale: Dec. 26)

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Stewart, who writes a monthly column for Fortune called "The Leading Edge" and once sat on the magazine's board of editors, follows up his Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations with an interesting yet complex work that stresses the need to consider intellectual vs. bricks and mortar or other forms of capital in accounting for the worth of corporations. Stewart lists three ideas that have changed how business organizations operate total quality management, reengineering, and intellectual capital and maintains that the companies that will succeed in the 21st century are those that master the knowledge agenda. His arguments are cogent and well reasoned. An extensive bibliography is included. Recommended for all types of libraries, this book should be read and reread by people in business generally. Littleton M. Maxwell, Business Information Ctr., Univ. of Richmond, VA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Business (August 19, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385500726
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385500722
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Paying Attention to Truth is Profitable and Protective, September 21, 2002
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Too many people will miss the core message of this book, which is about paying attention to truth and seeking out truth in the context of networks of trust, rather than about managing the process of internal knowledge.

When the author says "It's time to gather the grain and torch the chaff," his book over-all tells me he is talking about brain-power and a culture of thinking (the grain) and counterproductive information technology and irrelevant financial audits (the chaff).

This is one of those rare books that is not easily summarized and really needs to be read in its entirely. A few items that jumped out at me:

1) Training is a priority and has both return on investment and retention of employee benefits that have been under-estimated.

2) All major organizations (he focused on business, I would certainly add government bureaucracies) have "legal underpinnings, ..systems of governance, ..management disciplines, ..accounting (that) are based on a model of the corporation that has become irrelevant."

3) Although one reviewer objected to his comments on taxation, the author has a deeper point--the government is failing to steer the knowledge economy because it is still taxing as if we had an industrial economy--this has very severe negative effects.

4) As I read the author's discussion of four trends he credits to John Hagel of I2, it was clear that "intelligence" needs to be applied not only to single organizations, but to entire industries. In my view, this author is quite brilliant and needs to be carefully cultivated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all of the industry associations, and by governments. There are some extremely powerful "macro" opportunities here that his ideas could make very profitable for a group acting in the aggregate.

5) This is one book that should have had footnotes instead of end-notes, for while the author is careful to credit all ideas borrowed from others, it is difficult in the text to follow his thinking in isolation. One idea that is very pertinent to national intelligence and counterintelligence as well as corporate knowledge management is that of the reversal of the value chain--"first sell, then make," i.e. stop pushing pre-conceived products out the door and get into the business of just enough, just in time knowledge or product creation that is precisely tailored to the real time needs of the client.

6) The author excells at blasting those corporations (and implicitly, major government bureaucracies such as the spy agencies that spend over $30 billion a year of taxpayer funds) that assume that if they only apply more dollars to the problem, they can solve any challenge. "Too often 'dumb power' produces a higher-level stalemate." One could add: and at greater cost!

7) The bottom line of this truly inspired and original book comes in the concluding chapters when the author very ably discusses how it is not knowledge per se that creates the value, but rather the leadership, the culture, and infrastructure (one infers a networked infrastructure, not a hard-wired bunker). These are the essential ingredients for fostering both knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, something neither the CIA nor the FBI understood at the management level in the years prior to 9-11.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hats Off., January 23, 2002
You know, with all the talk over the past several years about the fact that we live in a knowledge economy, its never been clear to me how one uses that information to reshape the way one does business, and gain a competitive edge. How does one apply the notion of "intellectual capital" --which I competely agree with -- to running a company?
As it turns out, that is exactly what Tom Stewart does in The Wealth of Knowledge. At last, I say. In essence, its a book that looks at some of the "best practices" of companies that are doing exactly that, informed by Stewart's unique ability to connect the dots, and make sense of what is surprisingly fuzzy in the existing literature. I've followed Stewart's column, The Leading Edge, on and off again for years in Fortune, as he first began to chart these waters. I'm hardly surprised that he's the one to help tell us how to put the petal to the metal, and show how to use the knowledge that most businesses are really built upon. Hats off to you, sir.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant ideas - and the man can write!, January 7, 2002
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Tom Stewart is the world's foremost authority on intellectual capital, which is no small recommendation in itself. But here's an equally important consideration for anyone thinking about buying this book: he won't bore you to death! If you've read much in this general area, you know that such a fatal end often awaits the unwary reader. In sharp contrast, this guy knows how to tell a story, and The Wealth of Knowledge is packed with them -- hugely engaging anecdotes drawn both from his own broad journalistic experience and from spirited conversations with an amazing array of business leaders. None of which is to imply that the theoretical foundations are glossed over. Stewart clearly has a wealth of knowledge himself in these matters. He imparts what he's learned in a way that not only enlightens, but also makes you want to keep reading. Solid, grounded and profoundly useful insights. Highly entertaining. Highly recommended.

- Chris Locke, author of Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices, and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Consider a key. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
managing knowledge projects, circulating correspondence, supporting knowledge processes, intellectual capital strategy, knowledge assets, customer capital, knowledge intensity, structural capital, selling knowledge, managing intellectual capital, chief knowledge officer, customer learning, intellectual assets
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Yellow Pages, General Electric, United States, Wall Street, Information Age, World Bank, Jack Welch, Harvard Business School, Moore's Law, Peter Drucker, Saratoga Institute, World Wide Web, Baruch Lev, Bates Gruppen, General Motors, Human Capital Index, Brookings Institution, Buckman Laboratories, Royal Dutch, Silicon Valley, Laurence Prusak, Lotus Notes, Merrill Lynch, Nippon Roche
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