TABLE OF CONTENTS Kevin O Sullivan, D.Sc.
Over the last few years, organizations have invested heavily in knowledge management (KM) initiatives. For most of those organizations, the investment has generally been in the technologic aspects of KM, such as customer relationship management systems, document management systems, and knowledge agents. Although technology is not the only component of KM (it is vital to address the other aspects of KM if a system is to be sustainable in the long run), technology has remained the focus of many KM initiatives.
This chapter discusses the extent to which these technologies are being leveraged to manage intellectual capital. We identify eight main groupings of KM technologies that are examined in the context of the core elements of intellectual capital: human capital, customer capital, and relationship capital. The impact of organizational size on the selection of effective KM technologies is also discussed.
The existence of intellectual capital is being recognized as the foundation of organizational success in the twenty-first century (Wiig, 1997). It has long been recognized that many of the assets of a company good will, reputation, and patent rights are intangible. In 1999, Malone and Edvinsson distinguished intellectual capital into two broad categories: structural capital, such as business partnerships or customer loyalty and human capital, such as employees key competencies and knowledge. Many variations exist on these broad classifications, such as to separate out those assets protected by law intellectual property. Intellectual property includes assets such as trademarks, patents, copyrights, and licenses.
The term intellectual...
