INNOVATION MANAGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Intellectual capital is becoming the pre-eminent resource for creating wealth based on knowledge generated by research and development - R&D. Knowledge-based assets have increased the importance to develop and maintain competitive advantage in R&D. The paper develops a working definition of intellectual capital for R&D and a framework for identifying and classifying these components. This provides exploratory systems and processes useful for meaningful innovation management. Intellectual Capital is, in fact, a term used to describe organizations of knowledge which use their intangible assets as resources to secure competitive advantages. They also use other intangible assets, such as specific techniques and products, patented processes, know-how inherent to production and to the knowledge of the market, and their own competitive intelligence. As knowledge becomes the central asset in productive and strategic terms, mainly on innovation policies, the success of the organization depends evermore on the ability to measure and optimize Intellectual Capital. The paper presents and applies a model to evaluate Intellectual Capital employing a multi-criteria decision method. This method makes it possible not only measure intangible assets such as Intellectual Capital, but also to prescribe policies for optimizing intangible assets or, in other words, how and where the organization should invest, at a minimum effort, in order to improve its market value in the technology-driven world with innovation management in R&D.