Intellectual Capital Comparison
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Intellectual Capital Comparison
Gabriella Goodfield
OI/365
October 22, 2012
Shanrise Bell
Intellectual Capital Comparison
In Intellectual Capital there are ten areas that are cover and together they form IC.
Instead comparing all ten only five will be used. The five are 1. Human Capital, 2. Codified Knowledge, 3. Intellectual Property, 4. Structural Capital and 5. Tacit Knowledge. Each of these works hand in hand with the others. At the same they work alone in the business world.
Definitions
Human Capital: The definition of this is “The capabilities of employees, contractors, suppliers, and other company-related people to solve customer problems” (Sullivan, 2000).
Codified Knowledge: This is the knowledge that is written. “Knowledge which is written down in some medium” (Sullivan, 2000)
Intellectual Property: This refers to such items as books, songs, paintings also inventions. These items would be cover by patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
Structural Capital: This is the support that the company provides the human capital.
Tacit Knowledge: This is hard to define. This knowledge is part of a person and they acquire while working with other people.
Each of these is needed to help the firm to have success and stay in business for many years. Going further each of these can be applied to private lives as well.
Identify an example of IC Type
Giving only the definition does give the reader a full understanding of the five items of the IC. Giving examples would help the reader in understanding the concepts.
Human Capital: An example of this the education and skills of human capital. Also it is experience, know-how, skills, and creativity.
Codified Knowledge: Examples are clear and they are blueprints, code, formulae, and computer programs.
Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets.
Structural Capital: These could be computers, desk, phones, or anything that would aid the human capital to do their jobs.
Tacit Knowledge: The example that comes to mind is as follows experience, lore, and group skills.
Discuss whether each example is identifiable or unidentifiable asset and explain why
Human Capital is identifiable asset because the persons who work at the firm can show that have the know-how and the skills that is require by the position.
Codified knowledge is an identifiable asset because the firm has to work with this knowledge.
Intellectual Property is an identifiable asset because without patents, copyrights, and trademarks the firm could lose ownership on the written work, inventions, or products they made.
Structural Capital the examples are not an identifiable asset because they have to be replace after a certain period of time. This means additional costs for the firm.
Tacit Knowledge examples are definitely an identifiable asset because the firm needs people to share their experience to teach new employees.
When comparing Human Capital with Intellectual Property each have Intellectual Assets that tires them together. When we compare Codified knowledge is easier to protect with patents, trademarks whereas Tacit Knowledge is not that easy to transfer.
We can say that Tacit Knowledge could be consider a skill in an employee if the this employee applies their experience in correct form. If codified and tacit is combine extremely well in an employee then this would be an extremely important asset to the firm.