Modern researchers in the context of studying various economic and socio-political processes pay attention to such a resource as intellectual capital. It is considered as one of the key elements of the economic development of the state and society, ensuring the successful growth of private business. What is this resource and how is it formed? How can it be implemented in one or another economic process?
What is the essence of intellectual capital?
By intellectual capital, it is customary to understand, first of all, the totality of knowledge - technical, humanitarian, natural sciences, which can subsequently be used with certain benefits. For example, by starting a business in which advanced technologies and management decisions will be used based on relevant knowledge. Or, as an option, having solved a significant social problem.
It is worth distinguishing the concept under consideration from other terms similar in sound and meaning to the term "intellectual capital". Intellectual property, for example, one of the similar concepts, several attributes are absent at once for identification with capital. Firstly, it is not knowledge, but its product, and secondly, it is a legal category, while the concept under consideration is more social.
The term in question is also substantially more capacious in meaning. It can be used to describe processes and relationships in business, economics, society, politics. Thus, there are quite a few options for the practical application of such a resource as intellectual capital. From an economic point of view, it can be considered as a kind of asset that can make a profit, for example, in the form of license fees from the use of a patented product or as a competitive technology, which upon introduction into production significantly increases its efficiency.
Intellectual capital can be considered in the context of different social scales - within the framework of a small group (for example, represented by the staff of a small enterprise or student team), region, nation, interstate association. But most often the term in question is studied in relation to production processes within a business, at the level of an individual enterprise. That is, in an economic context. Let us consider how, in practice, the intellectual capital of an organization operating in the commercial sphere can be involved.
The use of intellectual capital in business
In the field of entrepreneurship, the term in question is most often considered as a combination of knowledge, experience, motivation and qualification of the company’s personnel, as well as the technologies that belong to it and can be used to improve the efficiency of production processes.
Intellectual capital in business is one of the key factors of production. Like the money that forms the “classic” capitalization of a firm, it appears as a result of investing and tends to depreciate over time, just as finances are subject to inflation.
At the same time, an objective assessment of intellectual capital in the context of its volumes and magnitude indicators is very problematic. It is theoretically possible to evaluate what kind of profit a company will bring in the introduction of a new technology based on expected demand, market capacity, and external factors. But there are a large number of aspects of the use of intellectual capital that are not measurable. For example, the volume of the corresponding resource, which legally belongs to the company, is its property and a real commercial asset.
Thus, the structure of intellectual capital, as we noted above, can be represented by the knowledge and qualifications of personnel. But people working in the company can quit and take the appropriate amount of capital with them. What will it be, it is extremely difficult to calculate.
Resource structure
Consider the structure in which intellectual capital can be represented. An approach has been formed in the research environment, according to which the resource in question consists of the following basic elements: human, organizational, and also consumer capital. We will study what is the specificity of each of them.
Human capital
Human capital is understood as knowledge, creative and intellectual potential, values, skills, personal qualities of a person working in a company, which can subsequently be converted into profit. The marked components of human capital can appear in an employee both as a result of his individual development and abilities, as well as as a result of targeted actions by the employing company to ensure that the person has the appropriate qualities.
According to many researchers, human intellectual capital is growing in volume not only due to the development of the employee’s personality, but also due to its active interaction with other people, colleagues, and company management. The component under consideration is among those that do not belong to the company, but to a specific person. It can be transferred by an employee from one company to another in the process of changing work.
However, employers of a person with high intellectual capital can use this resource in different ways. Some firms will be able to do this efficiently and take advantage of this great competitive advantage. Others, for example, their competitors, having invited the same person to work, will not be able to convert his knowledge and skills into profit.
Therefore, effective management of intellectual capital is the most important condition for its successful commercialization. In turn, the resources that allow it to be implemented are also rightfully attributed to intellectual capital in the context of the personnel management methods of the company. In one company, they can be more effective, as a result of which the knowledge and skills of employees are more likely to be converted into larger profits than if employees carried out activities in another organization.
Personnel management methods are most often classified as part of the organizational capital of the company. We study its specifics in more detail.
Organizational Capital
So, the intellectual capital of an organization includes an organizational element. It is represented by technologies, personnel management methods, corporate culture, software and hardware resources, patents, various types of intellectual property.
Organizational capital is formed as a result of the effective use of human. Moreover, in a variety of aspects. So, the development of any technology can be carried out by the company on its own. In this case, it is supposed to involve the knowledge and skills of workers. The more efficiently this is done, the more competitive the technology being developed will probably be.
A particular technical solution can be purchased by the company. In this case, the involvement of intellectual capital can be expressed in the knowledge and skills of the employees responsible for the corresponding purchase, which allow negotiating with sellers so that the technology is acquired cheaper or is accompanied by useful additional services.
Actually, organizational capital is important in terms of ensuring the most effective interaction between employees within the company. Its most important component is the corporate culture of the company. If it is built into the system, a significant resource appears, allowing management to carry out the development of intellectual capital as a whole and its individual elements. Corporate culture - a set of employee behavior standards and their interaction among themselves, which are transferred from one specialist to another in its original form or improved from the point of view of applicability in various internal corporate relations.
Consumer capital
The structure of intellectual capital in the context of the production activities of commercial firms is also represented by the consumer component. It includes a set of norms and channels for the company to interact with customers - customers, users of services. Customer satisfaction in interaction with the company and in the acquisition of its goods and services depends on the volume of the corresponding capital.
The main components of consumer capital:
- The degree of brand awareness by which the company is present in the market.
- The level of service that the company shows when interacting with customers.
- The manufacturability of customer interaction channels, their level of accessibility to the consumer.
The firm's profit is directly determined by the volumes of the noted components of consumer capital. The more famous the brand, the higher the level of service in the company, the more technologically advanced its channels of interaction with customers, the higher prices for its products can be, the more intense the demand for it. If a competing company sells the same goods or services, but its intellectual capital in the context of consumer interaction resources is lower, then it will be less successful in the market.
Criteria for the effectiveness of the use of intellectual capital
So, we examined the concept of intellectual capital, its structure. It will be useful to study a number of practical nuances of its use, how it can be applied in real business.
Researchers identify the following basic criteria for the effectiveness of the involvement of the resource in question:
- compatibility with the production processes of the company (capital that is optimal for the manufacturing sector can be completely useless in the service segments);
- the presence in the company’s management structure of mechanisms by which an adequate assessment of intellectual capital can be made (the main thing for management is to understand how promising are certain technologies from the point of view of putting into production, how relevant are the knowledge and skills of employees, do they require additions during continuing education or retraining);
- the competitiveness of key elements of intellectual capital (maybe other major business players have already implemented certain solutions and technologies, and in order to get ahead of them, organizations need to quickly develop new ones).
Let us now consider the importance of intellectual capital in a wider context - from the point of view of its fulfillment of economic functions.
The economic functions of intellectual capital
We noted above that this resource can be used at different levels. The way the intellectual capital of the company functions, we have studied. What is its role in larger processes, in particular at the level of the state economy?
In this case, it is fair to talk about the importance of the intellectual capital of the nation. It can be expressed, as in the case of more local social processes, at the level of individual commercial enterprises, in the possession of knowledge and skills by citizens of the state, in the presence of competitive technologies in the country's enterprises, in the possibilities of effective management of relevant resources - in this case, through various social institutions .
The intellectual capital resources of a nation can also develop due to the fact that this will be desired by a particular citizen, or for the reason that efforts aimed at their growth will be made by the state represented by certain institutions. In science, active discussions are ongoing on the subject of which of the two noted factors is more significant.
There is a version that the intellectual capital of a nation depends primarily on the desire and willingness of the citizens themselves to develop it. If people do not pay significant attention to this aspect, any state efforts may be useless. But there is an opposite point of view. It suggests that the development of intellectual capital requires human access to certain resources, without which it will be extremely difficult for him to solve the tasks.
It is primarily about education. A person may wish to acquire unique knowledge and skills as much as he wants, but if he does not have the opportunity to master them systematically, in specialized institutions, in the process of interacting with competent people, then any of his efforts may be ineffective.
Intellectual capital is a resource that must be, as we noted above, competitive, applicable in various production conditions. On the scale of the national economy, it is characterized by a similar property. That is, a person who wants to develop must have access to advanced resources that allow him to obtain the necessary intellectual capital. Therefore, it is not enough for the state to establish effective educational institutions, as well as to ensure the relevance of the knowledge taught in them.
Export and import of intellectual capital
In some cases, various forms of intellectual capital, as applied to the scale of a small enterprise or the economy of a country as a whole, can be exported and imported. We will study this aspect in more detail.
Solving problems at the enterprise or state economy level may imply a need for intellectual capital of significantly larger volumes than what is available. In this case, it becomes necessary to import the corresponding resource. Intellectual capital is purchased from external players - other firms abroad. Its price can be determined by various factors. If this is a technology, the prospects of its introduction into production and subsequent profit generation are evaluated. If capital is supposed to be imported in the form of knowledge and skills, the first thing that is taken into account is the desire of their carriers to move from one company to another or to travel outside their country, as well as the current level of salaries for specialists of the same profile.
When the intellectual capital of an enterprise is imported, it is important to correctly implement the appropriate resource. It may turn out that the company will have at its disposal the necessary volumes of capital in its most competitive expression, but it will not be able to use it in practice.
In turn, a situation is possible in which certain types of intellectual capital will be exported - in the context of legal relations between individual business entities or in the course of interstate partnership.This procedure again involves an adequate assessment of its price (this is of particular importance to the exporter), the study of the conditions under which the transfer of intellectual capital is possible, as well as the willingness of the importing party to effectively implement the resources received in production.
Summary
So, we have studied what constitutes intellectual capital. Its main elements, the importance for the state economy, we also examined. This resource can be represented by a very wide range of components, based on their attribution to human, organizational, or consumer capital. There are, of course, other criteria for its classification, but the scheme considered by us can be attributed to the number of the most common among Russian researchers.
The resource in question can be involved in a variety of legal relationships. But most often it is in demand in order to describe various business processes. The fact is that intellectual capital, along with the money that is used for the classic "capitalization" of a business, is one of the key competitive factors of production. Its volumes determine how technological a particular process will be in an enterprise.
It is noteworthy that in order for the intellectual capital of an organization represented in a particular variety to be successfully mastered, it may be necessary to have other resources of the corresponding category. So, in order for the company to be able to effectively use human capital, it will require significant amounts of organizational. In turn, only if there is a sufficient amount of consumer capital, the value of the previous varieties of the resource in question will matter.
Intellectual capital can be imported and exported. This process can be observed both at the level of legal relations between local business entities (in this case, the concepts of export and import are considered in a broader interpretation), and during interstate partnership. For parties interacting at one or another level, it is important to determine the optimal cost of the exchanged capital, to ensure its effective implementation in various economic processes.
In some cases, only with the most intensive exchange of the corresponding resource can the economy develop successfully. The intellectual capital of a nation is its most important value. Therefore, the state and citizens themselves should be interested in developing it, increasing its scope as much as possible. Moreover, the actions of the authorities and residents of the country are equally important. The former create the necessary conditions for the latter to take advantage of the opportunities for their professional development, to obtain the necessary knowledge and skills that form intellectual capital. Society should also be ready to fulfill its most important role - the main carrier of national intellectual capital.