Intellectual Capital: Core asset for the third millennium (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This is an "ideas" book for managers keen to understand and interpret the nature of a business which principally sells its knowledge: knowledge assets based in its people, systems, brands, intellectual property and other intangibles. Organisations which provide competitive advantage through their use of intangible assets don't fit the classical model. This book shows that intangible assets are becoming as important as tangible assets in a knowledge based service-oriented economy. It provides practical advice on how to identify, document and manage these assets. The book provides a framework for organisations planning for re-engineering and downsizing, a method for determining who and what is valuable to the corporation, given a variety of circumstances. Intellectual Capital will also assist senior managers who want to value or acquire an enterprise where the assets are intangible and are not recorded in their published accounts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: International Thomson Business Press; 1st edition (May 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861520239
• ISBN-13: 978-1861520234
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,609,827 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do We Really Know?, January 6, 2000

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Intellectual Capital: Core asset for the third millennium (Paperback)

Annie Brooking's book was published prior to Thomas A. Stewart's book which has the same title. Both are worthy of rigorous scrutiny because, although they share the same subject, they take entirely different approaches to it.

The subtitle of Brooking's book introduces her perspective on intellectual capital: "Core Asset for the Third Millennium Enterprise." She identifies four categories of assets: market (the potential an organization has due to market-related intangibles), intellectual property (know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, and various design rights), human-centered (talents, skills, experience, loyalty), and infrastructure (whatever brings order, safety, correctness, and quality to an organization).

Throughout Intellectual Capital, Brooking includes a number of "audits" which enable her reader to measure value of an organization's brand, name, backlog, distribution, collaboration, patent(s), copyright(s), design, trade secrets, human-centered assets, employee education, vocational qualification, work related knowledge, occupational assessment, work related competency, corporate learning, management philosophy, corporate culture, information technology systems, database, networking, IT management, and IC management.

Brooking explains HOW to make accurate measurements of these and other intangible assets, and, suggests HOW to manage them with meticulous care. The "Corporate Culture for Collaboration" audit in Chapter 6, all by itself, is well worth the price of the book.

Unless and until organizations accurately measure both their tangible and intangible assets, it will be impossible to determine the real-world value of those organizations. This is especially true as dot.com companies proliferate.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Four Components of Intellectual Capital, July 14, 2001

By	Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Intellectual Capital: Core asset for the third millennium (Paperback)

Intellectual capital is a truly critical topic for twenty-first century business.

As known, the subject of intellectual capital appeared on the business world in the 1990s. Patrick H.Sullivan writes, in his 'Value-Driven Intellectual Capital,' "this history actually began in the early 1980s, as managers, academics, and consultants around the world began to notice that a firm's intangible assets, its intellectual capital, were often a mojor determinant of the corporation's profit...By the mid 1990s it was becoming clear that there were two separate but related paths of thinking about intellectual capital. One path, the knowledge and brainpower path, focused on creating and expanding the firm's knowledge. The other path, the resource-based perspective, was concerned with how to create profits from a firm's unique combinations of intellectual and tangible resources."

In this context, Annie Brooking defines intellectual capital as the term given to the combined intangible assets which enable the company to function. And hence, she formulates her first IC concept as 'Enterprise = Tangible Assets + Intellectual Capital.' According to Brooking, the intelectual capital of an enterprise can be split into following four categories:

1. Market assets: all market related intangibles, including brands, customers, customer loyalty, company name, backlog, distribution channels, business collaborations, various contracts and agreements such as licensing, franchises and so on.

2. Intellectual property assets: know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, design rights, and trade and service marks.

3. Human-centred assets: education, vocational qualifications, work related knowledge, occupational assessments, psychometrics, and work related competencies.

4. Infrastructure assets: management philosophy, corporate culture, management processes, information technology systems, networking systems, and financial relations.

At last words, she says that "our method brings together intangible assets which most companies already have but fail to manage in a coherent way...Organizations that realize their ability to succeed in the third millennium will be dominated by intangible assets are already putting their intellectual capital teams together."

Highly recommended.

Recommended readings on Intellectual Capital:

* Johan Roos et.al. - Intellectual Capital

* Patrick H.Sullivan - Value-Driven Intellectual Capital

* Thomas A.Stewart - Intellectual Capital

* Leif Edvinsson and Michael S.Malone - Intellectual Capital

* Karl-Erik Sveiby - The New Organizational Wealth

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too good to be true. Another stunner from the mostress., February 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Intellectual Capital: Core asset for the third millennium (Paperback)

Extraordinary how Annie sox it to them. Go gettem babe