<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The intellectual capital research and practice entered in the last years into a visible decline due to some barriers in understanding its intangible nature and designing Newtonian metrics for its measurement and reporting. Inertial thinking is very powerful in promoting new approaches for the need of a new perspective in working with intellectual capital. Unfortunately, even some top journals in the domain of intellectual capital remained trapped into this Newtonian logic and standard statistical analysis, as a result of the mind-set of their editorial staff and reviewers. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the intellectual capital research and practice today and to reveal some of the most important barriers in understanding the complexity and nature of the intellectual capital. These barriers manifest like myths in approaching the research into intellectual capital, myths that create a false reality and false research questions, which enter into collision with the real life of companies and their business. The paper identifies seven myths which created a Newtonian version of the non-Newtonian reality, and a golden rule for further research into the intellectual capital of organizations. The conclusion of the present critical analysis is that we need a new approach to understand the complexity of the intellectual capital and new metrics to measure it.</p></abstract>

The intellectual capital research and practice entered in the last years into a visible decline due to some barriers in understanding its intangible nature and designing Newtonian metrics for its measurement and reporting. Inertial thinking is very powerful in promoting new approaches for the need of a new perspective in working with intellectual capital. Unfortunately, even some top journals in the domain of intellectual capital remained trapped into this Newtonian logic and standard statistical analysis, as a result of the mind-set of their editorial staff and reviewers. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the intellectual capital research and practice today and to reveal some of the most important barriers in understanding the complexity and nature of the intellectual capital. These barriers manifest like myths in approaching the research into intellectual capital, myths that create a false reality and false research questions, which enter into collision with the real life of companies and their business. The paper identifies seven myths which created a Newtonian version of the non-Newtonian reality, and a golden rule for further research into the intellectual capital of organizations. The conclusion of the present critical analysis is that we need a new approach to understand the complexity of the intellectual capital and new metrics to measure it.

Intellectual capital research and practice: 7 myths and one golden rule

The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest

Management & Marketing

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Intellectual capital research and practice: 7 myths and one golden rule"}

The intellectual capital research and practice entered in the last years into a visible decline due to some barriers in understanding its intangible nature and...

Intellectual capital research and practice: 7 myths and one golden rule

Published Online: Jul 04, 2018

Page range: 859 - 879

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mmcks-2018-0010

Keywords
intellectual capital, knowledge, metaphorical thinking, rationality, emotionality, spirituality, linearity

© 2018 Constantin Bratianu, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Intellectual capital research and practice: 7 myths and one golden rule

Published Online: Jul 04, 2018

Page range: 859 - 879

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mmcks-2018-0010

Keywordsintellectual capital, knowledge, metaphorical thinking, rationality, emotionality, spirituality, linearity

© 2018 Constantin Bratianu, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
intellectual capital, knowledge, metaphorical thinking, rationality, emotionality, spirituality, linearity