Managing Intangible Resources. Knowledge, which is used to improve a firm’s innovational capabilities, processes and performance is of intangible nature. Because of that, these resources need to be translated into identifiable and measurable resources. Management of intangible resources is about figuring out which knowledge resources a company possesses, and how they interact with each other. Unfortunately, like mentioned above, managerial awareness for the importance of intellectual capital is still low, but improving. Executives begin to recognize the relationship between entrepreneurial success and their intellectual capital. The reason why this shift towards a more knowledge based enterprise is so slow is the fact that intellectual capital still is hard to value. As a consequence, the need of management to substantiate their decisions with figures remains difficult. Before management can make better decisions, they must know which factors to influence. Xxxxxxxx et al. (2006) described four categories of factors: Performance and motivation; Workability, health and well being; Job satisfaction; and Commitment Some authors proposed that intellectual capital statements are a part of companies’ knowledge management strategies as well as a device for communicating knowledge management’s objectives, initiatives and results. Thus, knowledge management is the linking pin between the intellectual capital statement and the theory of the firm (Roberts and Chaminade, 2005). Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx (2005) developed their research based on a case study of the Spanish energy company, Union Fenosa. They set up an intellectual capital model to support their hypothesis that intangibles contribute to meeting the operating objectives and, therefore, the financial objectives. Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx (2005) summarized that the intellectual capital model is a tool to identify, monitor and control the key knowledge of the firm. The challenge that firms nowadays are facing, is how they will realize that intellectual resources can be made manageable, and how these resources affect the development of an organization (Mouritsen et al., 2004). Knowledge management and intellectual capital approaches are critical for most universities. The explanation lies in the fact that the main goals of universities are the production and the distribution of knowledge. Moreover higher education institutions have important investments in research and human resources (Xxxxxxx et al., 2006). So, more than any other sector, higher ed...
