The Impact of Intellectual Capital on the SMEs Performance: A Study of the Romanian Central Region SMEs

The 21st century is the century of change and maybe one of the most important changes in the organizations’ life is the transition from focusing on the development of the tangible assets to the development of the intangible assets and the interest for attracting human resources capable to generate performance. The survival of many companies depends on their willingness and capacity to adapt to such changes. (Abdulaali, 2018) In this dynamic and complex economic system, the intangible assets of organizations become primary, being decisive for the organizations’ performance. In the new economic competition, intangible assets provide a sustainable competitive advantage, intellectual capital and intangible assets representing the key factor in company profitability and success. In the knowledge based society, intellectual capital has more value for organizations than tangible assets and knowledge becomes a permanent source of competitiveness (Bhatti, Zaheer, 2014). It is considered by specialists a valuable and strategic resource, since the success of organizations depends on creating, discovering, storing, disseminating, measuring and developing knowledge. The main objective of the research presented in this paper is to offer an overview on the specific problems and needs of the entrepreneurs financed through the Romania Start-up Plus programme, part of Start-UP Hub: The Entrepreneurs Laboratory Cod SIMS: 105648. A primary target of this research is to examine the components of intellectual capital and the way in which the intellectual capital influences the small business performance. The majority of the researchers agree that intellectual capital is directly connected to the performance of the SMEs sector. The results of our analysis shows the fact that intangible assets influence business development in various ways, such as increasing competitive advantage, expanding employee competency and improving organizational performance.