Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital and Innovation. Usefulness of a literature review for policy making1 Authors: M. Paloma Sánchez* Professor of Applied Economics Autonomous University of Madrid Cantoblanco Madrid 28049
[email protected] *Corresponding author Oihana Basilio BA in Economics. PhD student Autonomous University of Madrid Cantoblanco Madrid 28049
[email protected] Carlos Vivas BSc in Computer Science. PhD student Autonomous University of Madrid Cantoblanco Madrid 28049 carlos.vivas@
[email protected] Abstract: The literature on Intellectual Capital issues and their effects on the results of the institutions applying such heuristics have greatly increased in recent years. However we do not know whether a robust theoretical field is really emerging or whether there are essential differences with Knowledge Management, a field with much longer academic and professional tradition. The main object of this paper is to shed some light on these issues, and see whether the increase in the number of papers shows a real advance and consolidation of such new field. To attain such an objective content analysis methodology is applied to review the abstracts of the main literature published over the last 10 years on issues related to the relationship between intellectual capital management (ICM) or knowledge management (KM) and results (whether innovation in particular or performance in general). The aim is to depict a dynamic picture showing the changes in a) terminology, b) the theories used, c) the focus in sectors or countries, d) the entities studied, e) the methods of analysis, etc. in order to reveal the hidden patterns and trends and the policy implications stemming from IC analysis. Key words: “Intellectual capital”, “Innovation”, “Knowledge Management”, “Literature Review”, “Content Analysis” Paper presented at the IFKAD (International Forum on Knowledge Assets Dynamics). University of Glasgow. Glasgow 17-18 February, 2009
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A previous version of this paper was presented at the 4th Workshop on Visualising, Measuring and Managing Intangibles and Intellectual Capital. Hasselt (Belgium) October 22-24, 2008. We sincerely appreciate Prof. Baruch Lev’s comments on the paper and have taken account most of his recommendations in this new version.
Biographical notes of the authors: M. Paloma Sánchez. Professor of Applied Economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Director of an Interuniversity Master and PhD Programme on Economics and Management of Innovation. Central co-ordinator of the MERITUM research project and the E*KNOW-NET thematic network which have both involved Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management issues, funded by the European Commission. She has represented the Spanish Government on the Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy in the OECD for 15 years, chairing this Committee from 1990 until 1993. Member of a High Level Expert Group set up by the European Commission on “Reporting of Intellectual Capital for increasing investment in Research and Development”. Her main research and publications are related to intellectual capital as a driver of innovation, the economics of innovation, technology transfer and innovation and technological policy Oihana Basilio. Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business at the Basque Country University (Licenciada en Ciencias Económicas y Diplomada en Administración de Empresas). She took the last year of her Business studies at the FHW-Berlin, with an Erasmus grant, and her final year of Economic studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid, having been awarded a Seneca grant. She is currently studying the Interuniversity PhD Programme on Economics and Management of Innovation at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Carlos Vivas Augier. B.Sc in Computer Science at American University (Nicaragua); Masters Degree in Information Technology at Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain); and PhD Student on the Economics and Management of Innovation Programme at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). Currently working as a researcher for the private sector investigating the socioeconomic impacts of R&D services
1. Introduction In recent years there has been a great increase in the literature on Intellectual Capital (IC) issues and their effects on the results of institutions applying such heuristics. However, we do not know whether a robust theoretical field is really emerging or even whether there are essential differences between IC and Knowledge Management (KM), a field with much longer academic and professional tradition. The list of definitions for both concepts is almost as long as the number of scholars dealing with them. This is not surprising having in mind that they both deal with a term as difficult to apprehend, define and measure as “knowledge” (Foray, 2004). This term is, nevertheless, pervading our societies (OECD, 1996) and showing how the relevance of tangible assets is losing ground to intangibles (Cañibano et al. 2000; Cañibano and Sanchez, 2004; European Commission, 2000; Guthrie, 2001; Lev, 2001). However, over the years some notions of a similar nature have been emerging. We are going to adhere to the notion of Knowledge Management used by Nonaka and Tacheuchi (1995) and by Nonaka (2005) which they see as a process in which explicit and tacit knowledge held by individuals, teams and organizations interplay. If wellmanaged, the process allows the expansion and creation of more knowledge (Nonaka, 1994) The notion of IC which will be used throughout this paper is that established in the MERITUM Guidelines (Cañibano et al., 2002) endorsed by the European Commission (2006) in the RICARDIS Report. According to this definition IC is the combination of the human, organizational and relational resources of an organization and includes, for example, employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities, R&D activities, routines, IPRs, and all resources linked to external relationships, such as clients, suppliers, R&D partners, etc. It is interesting to note that few papers have tried to deal simultaneously with the two concepts, comparing them and highlighting the commonalities and differences. The papers of Zhou and Fink (2003) and Wiig (1997) attempt to compare the two concepts as their titles promise but they do not show any really clear differences or common issues. Serenko and Bontis (2009) rank Journals dealing with both and treat them indifferently. Nelson and McCann (2008) also deal with the two issues at the same time considering KM as a set of practices and processes designed to develop the quality and quantity of IC. Seeman et al. (1999) along similar lines consider Knowledge Management as a deliberate set of processes which intend to increase, share, improve, etc. the knowledge included in the three elements of Intellectual Capital. Implicitly, these two papers are accepting that IC is a set of resources. However, the MERITUM definition by distinguishing between resources and activities is, in fact, including KM practices within IC. We are going to deal with this comparison in the rest of the paper but we would like to start by setting down important differences that, in our opinion, emerge from the large amount of literature dealing with them. The first difference is, as just said, that ICM is a broader concept because it incorporates KM activities together with other routines and practices. The second one is that many of the papers dealing with Intellectual Capital Management implicitly or explicitly include what might be termed “old intangibles” such as trade marks, intellectual property, good will and so on, together with “new intangibles” such as human resources management, organizational changes or customer relations improvement. In contrast, most papers dealing with Knowledge Management refer mainly to the latter and seldom to the former. A third important difference is that most KM papers have what we could call a vision inside the firm. The main objective of the activities dealing with knowledge is to improve management to achieve the established objectives,
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while the aim of IC management papers is, explicitly or implicitly, to disclose the institution’s intangibles resources and activities so as to let stakeholders know about them (Sánchez et al., 2000). With these points in mind, the main object of this paper is to initiate an exploratory analysis of recent literature to compare the dynamics in the two fields, and their convergence or divergence, with respect to a predefined set of categories. The analysis will concentrate on papers that explicitly relate knowledge or intellectual capital management to performance of the institution in general and to its innovation capacity in particular. An important shortcoming of our approach should be made explicit from the outset. The threes issues abovementioned that distinguish ICM from KM from our point of view may not be shared by the scholars dealing with both fields. In fact, some of them may be referring to what we call ICM using KM wording and vice-versa. This means that the distinction between the two fields is an issue per se, which will be dealt with in future versions of this analysis when a thorough reading of all the papers is made. Governments are particularly concerned about encouraging production and diffusion of knowledge in society with the conviction that this will increase innovation capacities and thus the competitiveness of the economy. Help is needed to encourage institutions in this respect (European Commission, 2006). The IC framework demands homogenization and common patterns of diffusion, thus calling for some institutionalization, providing rationale for intervention. The final aim of this exploratory review is to analyse whether the results already obtained provide grounds for designing suitable policies to encourage institutions to manage their knowledge and other intellectual assets and report on them in following an agreed criterion. The precise objectives of this paper, an initial step in a much longer research project, are quite limited in scope. This first step consists of a content analysis of the abstracts of the most important literature published over the last 10 years on issues related to the relationship between intangibles/intellectual capital management (ICM), or knowledge management (KM) and the results (be it innovation in particular or performance in general). The aim is to depict a dynamic picture showing the changes in a) terminology; b) the theories used; c) the focus in industries or countries; d) the entities studied; e) the methods of analysis, etc. Journal Articles, Proceedings, Book Chapters and Books, from the main international data bases, are reviewed and the dynamic evolution of the quality of the papers is approached by distinguishing between ISI and non ISI Journals. The content analysis will use both manual and software procedures. Literature review is a well-known method of research to analyse how a given field is evolving. It is a recognized method “for conducting evidence-based policy” (Pittaway and Cope, 2007). In the particular field we are dealing with it has been applied to see the evolution of the content of a particular journal (Biemans and Griffin, 2007), detect the invisible colleges and research networks (McMillan, G.S., 2008), or analyse citation impacts (Serenko and Bontis, 2004). The next step will consist of revising the most important papers published during the analysed period and applying the content analysis methodology with software support to all empirical full papers. The aim here is to study the consequences of knowledge and IC management, so as to suggest sensible policies to improve its use. In accordance with the above we are accepting that innovation is a type of performance, while bearing in mind the literature that sees no clear relations between the two. In this sense we should remember that the term “innovation” may refer both to the process (activities to be innovative) and to the results (more new products, processes, organizational or marketing results put into the market). It is this latter meaning which, in our opinion, may be considered a type of performance. The problem is that the difference between the two meanings of innovation is not always clear in the literature. The long-term objective of the exercise is, as the title of this paper suggests, drawing policy conclusions which may enable Governments to improve regulations on intangibles as a means of helping companies improve their innovation capacities and performance in general. Additionally, in future work studies, our aim is to analyze the diffusion of this body of literature as a way to assess its contribution to the general knowledge by, for example, using additional bibliometric devices, such as the number and evolution of citations. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the data sources, the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of topics and the methodology used for the analysis. Section 3 presents the main research questions and a) the answers provided by the analysis, and b) the questions which remain unanswered. Some tables and charts show the main results found. Section 4 draws some conclusions, describes the shortcomings of the study and paves the way for the future work on this issue. A final Annex includes the titles of Journals where all the papers with analyzed abstracts have appeared. We distinguish between ISI and non ISI Journals, and order them according to the number of articles published in the particular Journal during the period of analysis. 2. Data sources and methodology The raw data used come from Journal articles, Papers in Conference Proceedings, Book Chapters and Books published between January 1998 and December 2007, referred to in the following databases2: - Web of Knowledge - Scopus 2
During the further work a special effort will be made to make sure that no relevant publications are left out
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- Abi Inform - Econlit - Cab-direct The search criteria used has attempted to identify all papers where the effect of intangibles, intellectual capital or knowledge management, on performance in general, and innovation in particular, were analysed. A total of 5,202 references were initially found but once duplications (the same documents in more than one database, or the authors’ names misspell) and anonymous documents had been eliminated, a total of 4,435 “reference” abstracts were left to be reviewed. A reading of those abstracts allowed us to exclude any papers which did not fulfil the requirements established (described in the next paragraph) and we were finally left with 1,346. Out of this amount 15 books appeared. However, the only information about them was the bibliographical reference with no abstract, which therefore made any content analysis impossible. This situation also applied to some book chapters (72 cases), some proceedings (1 case) and even some journal articles (27 cases). All these documents have, therefore, been excluded and a total of 1,246 references have been duly studied and codified for the analysis. As an anecdote it may be mentioned that the careful review of the abstracts allows identification of “republicans”, which is to say, people that do “republication” of the same or very similar papers in different Journals. The criteria adopted for the selection of the 1,246 documents for codification and analysis have been the following: We have not considered issues related to the purely technological aspects of the productive process, nor those concerned with physical issues, such as the use of the space, or space reorganization, or IT when referring to hardware. Because we are mainly interested in the management of intangibles, while acknowledging that physical and intellectual assets are complementary, focus is only on the latter. Intangibles are sometimes considered “soft” issues (Stalk and Lachenauer, 2004), as opposed to “hard” or tangibles, with a certain negative connotation of the word “soft” that we do not share. As mentioned before, the growth in intangibles is explaining the growth of the economies over recent years, so referring to such an important change as “soft” seems out of place. Nor are we considering those papers that tackle KM or ICM, without specifically mentioning results. Among those results we distinguish between “innovation”, be it technological or non-technological [i.e. organizational or marketing innovation, (OECD, 2005)] and “performance”, considering as such any effect on results measured by whatever indicator: market share, revenues, market to book ratio, etc. Results referred to in qualitative terms, such as “improvement of employees’ satisfaction” or “increase in employees’ productivity” have also been considered. Several papers refer to specific sectors. The criteria to decide which to analyse have been the following: We have selected all papers where the object of the analysis is ICM or KM and the sector is used as an example where the analysis is applied. These papers are mostly published in classified Social Sciences (SS) Journals. We have excluded those papers, which tend to be published in areas other than SS, where the object of study is the sector itself (agriculture, forestry, energy-environment, healthcare, etc). Researchers identified the practice of knowledge management as early as 4000 years ago (Quaddus and Xu, 2005). Our purpose is not to go that far back, but to use content analysis methodology to see how research on knowledge and intellectual capital management has evolved over the last decade. Such methodology has been widely used in the fields we are dealing with (for example, Beattie and Thomson, 2006; Guthrie et al, 2003; Serenko and Bontis, 2004) and in many others (such as, Duriau et al., 2007; Eby et al., 2005; Fernández Chaves, 2002; Hemmings et al., 2007; Mulvey and Stern, 2004; Nilsson et al., 2007; Piñuel, 2002; Stemler, 2001). We have applied this methodology to the abstracts, codifying, as categories and subcategories, the following aspects, in order to allow both a static and a dynamic analysis: a) Year of publication b) Type of publication: Journal article (ISI or non ISI), Proceeding, Book Chapter and Book. However, as mentioned before, any document found without an abstract, as is the case of books, has been finally excluded. c) Theoretical base of the analysis; d) Type of entity analysed if micro focus: Multinationals (MNE), Small and medium companies (SMEs), Start-ups, Non-profit, Universities, Public Sector institutions, etc. e) Type of entity analysed if meso/macro focus: Clusters, Communities of practice, Cities, Regions, Nations. f) Methodology: Interview, survey, case study, econometric analysis, panel data, use of publicly available data g) Type of paper: Conceptual, empirical, literature review. It is essential to note that the quality of analyzed data, ensured by the prestige of selected data sources, is as important as the quality of the analysis itself. In this case we have followed Content Analysis methodology. As is well-known this methodology consists of a set of techniques for the analysis of communications (papers in Journals or Conferences in our case) based on systematic and objective procedures. The aim of these procedures is to obtain quantitative or qualitative indicators, useful for the description of the content and characteristics of the messages and for making inferences about their social context. The steps followed are in line with the specialized literature (Fernández-Chaves, 2002; Piñuel-Raigada, 2002 or Stemler, 2001). The object of analysis and delimitation of the time period, place and context of research are defined; the data sources, the data sample and the analysis units (the abstracts in our case) to be codified are also defined. The categories and sub-categories should be established in a way that one criterion is used, meaning that they are: independent, exhaustive, mutually excluding, significant, clear and replicable. These characteristics are important for the reliability and validity of the
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codification because they allow stability during the process and reproducibility by other researchers. We have tried to follow such indications with the exception explained later on. The actual process has been as follows: Once the criteria for the definition of categories and subcategories was established two people (the minimum necessary according to Kripperdorf, 1990) have read the abstracts and codified them manually. A third person has checked the codification until a consensus among the three has been reached. In addition, in order to eliminate manual errors as much as possible, software specially designed for content analysis (MAXQDA) has been used to check that the key words have been rightly considered. 3. The main initial research questions The list of initial research questions is rather ambitious and we are conscious of the limitations of the data and the difficulties we have in answering them all. Some will certainly be, at least partially answered in this paper. The rest will be put aside to be dealt with in further steps of this research project. Research Questions: -
-
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To what extent is IC terminology used in ISI Journals? Does the relative “youth” of the field affect the standard of the Journals in which papers on IC are published? When comparing KM and ICM, are there differences in the theoretical base used? Which sectors/countries are analysed more in ICM? And in KM? Does the methodology used differ across time/entities/sectors/countries etc.? Qualitative vs. quantitative methods of analysis. Which is more common and in which areas/topics/issues? Are there issues particularly addressed in ICM and not in KM or vice versa? Without interest diminishing in the business sector, increasing concern about IC and KM in new areas (i.e. Universities or the Public Sector) and at meso/macro entities (i.e. Cities, Regions, Nations) is being detected. What are the theoretical/political implications of these new approaches? Is it possible to detect issues which should be tackled in a future research agenda? Is a “Theory on Intellectual Capital” emerging? Is policy an issue explicitly addressed or is it a hidden between the lines? Are there policy implications stemming from IC analysis? The search is focussed on whether the casual relationship KM or ICM is influencing Performance (and Innovation in particular). Is the reverse direction being explored in the literature; that of innovation encouraging ICM or KM? Or good performance encouraging ICM or KM? Have there been emerging issues or topics of interest in recent years? Relational capital (and networks in general) appears to be the most frequent type of IC mentioned. Are there policy implications which lead from this?
4. Data analysis The first thing we should state is that, with the obvious exception of the main criteria used to select the abstracts being analysed (explicit mention of positive or negative effects of ICM or KM on results) the rest of the codification criteria (theory, industry, country, methodology, etc.) do not appear in many of the abstracts. This may be because that particular aspect has not been included in the paper itself or that the author/s have not mentioned it in the abstract. The results found in this article in relation to the main trends will be checked against the results of the analysis of the full papers (further research envisaged). In fact, the comparison between both may be an indication of how confident we can be about using the content analysis of abstracts to assess the characteristics of the full papers. In the following paragraphs we are going to review the different issues codified comparing the results of KM and ICM papers and paying attention to the evolution throughout the studied period (1998-2007). However, in order to keep this paper a reasonable length, the tables will only show the dynamics or differences between KM and ICM when the figures are meaningful. In other cases, we will only show the figures representing the average of the whole period and the sum of both KM and ICM papers. 4.1. Type of Publication The types of publications finally kept are ISI Journals, non-ISI Journals and Conference Proceedings. As mentioned before, there were books (15) and book chapters (72) originally identified for analysis that were excluded because there were no abstracts. The Conference Proceedings were not easy to identify because on some databases the name of a Journal was being used as the Conference title so careful manual filtering was necessary to distinguish between the two. We are aware that while analysing publications and papers presented in Conferences some duplication may occur. This is because, once the conference has taken place, the communications may be partly incorporated in the publications. However, bearing in mind the significant number of Conferences dealing with Intellectual Capital over the last decade3, we thought it interesting to, at least, make a 3
The OECD International Symposium: Measuring And Reporting Intellectual Capital: Experience, Issues And Prospects.
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brief analysis of those papers and see if new issues are appearing. In future studies our aim will be to detect the subsequent publication of Conference papers to eliminate such duplication. Table 1. Type of publications Type of publication ISI Journals
Total publications
Non-ISI Journals
Proceedings
Total
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
738
59,23
305
24,48
203
16,29
1246
100
Looking at the evolution, the first thing to note is the enormous increase of interest in the subject throughout the period. In 10 years the papers published in these areas have multiplied by more than 5. The dominance of ISI papers (59,23 % of the total) with respect to non-ISI papers (24,48 %) or Conference Proceedings (16,29 %) is maintained throughout the period. Papers dealing with ICM (almost 30% of the total taking in all types of publications) may have slightly decreased in recent years with respect to KM papers. As could be expected the number of these latter is systematically greater than ICM papers. However, it is clear that while IC language is less commonly used, its “youth” does not seem to affect the standard of the papers measured by their presence in ISI publications. The decrease in relative terms of ISI and non ISI papers is explained by the larger number in Conference Proceedings, reflecting, once more, the increased awareness in these issues.
Table 2. Type of publications. Evolution 1998-2007. ICM vs. KM
Type of Publication
ICM vs. KM
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2007
Total period
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
ICM
18,18
22,54
11,49
14,47
14,15
9,60
14,37
ISI Journal Article Total ISI Journal Article
KM
45,45
32,39
41,38
49,06
44,81
42,80
44,86
63,64
54,93
52,87
63,52
58,96
52,40
59,23
Non-ISI Journal Article Total Non-ISI Journal Article
ICM
18,18
12,68
6,90
8,18
8,96
12,40
11,00
KM
11,36
15,49
20,69
11,32
12,74
14,40
13,48
29,55
28,17
27,59
19,50
21,70
26,80
24,48
ICM
6,82
5,63
6,90
3,14
3,30
6,00
4,41
KM
0,00
11,27
12,64
13,84
16,04
14,80
11,88
6,82
16,90
19,54
16,98
19,34
20,80
16,29
100
100
100
100
100
100
100,00
44
71
87
159
212
250
1246
Conference Proceedings Total Conference Proceedings Total Publications Total number of papers
Amsterdam, 9-11 June 1999. Visualising, Measuring and Managing Intangibles and Intellectual Capital. Ferrara 18-20 October 2005. OECD Conference “Intellectual Assets and Innovation: Value Creation in the Knowledge Economy”. Ferrara 20-22 October 2005. The World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities. Paris. June 20, 2005 The Second World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities. Paris. June 29-30, 2006. Visualising, Measuring and Managing Intangibles and Intellectual Capital”. Maastricht, The Netherlands, October 25-27, 2006 The World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities. May 24-25, 2007. Paris Visualizing measuring and managing intangibles and intellectual capital, Ferrara, Italy, October 29, 2007. International Forum on Knowledge asset Dynamics. Matera, Italia. June 26-22-23, 2007 Visualizing measuring and managing intangibles and intellectual capital, Ferrara, Italy, October 29, 2007. World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities. Paris. May 22-23, 2008. International Forum on Knowledge asset Dynamics. Matera, Italia. June 26-27, 2008
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4. 2. KM and ICM relation with results Table 3 shows the distribution of all papers analysed according to the main criteria used (relationship with results), taking into consideration the type of publication and distinguishing between those tackling KM or ICM. A further breakdown distinguishes between those whose effect on innovation was explicitly mentioned or those where only reference to general performance results were made. Table 3. KM and ICM relation with results ISI Journals Type of publication
KM & Innovation
Nº 393
% 53,25
Non-ISI Journals Nº % 156 51,15
KM & Performance
166
22,49
12
3,93
16
7,88
194
15,57
ICM & Innovation
99
13,41
93
30,49
42
20,69
234
18,78
80 738
10,84 100
44 305
14,43 100
13 203
6,40 100
137 1246
11,00 100
ICM & Performance Total publications
Proceedings
Total
Nº 132
% 65,02
Nº 681
% 54,65
For the total covering the whole period the most important relationship revealed is KM and Innovation. Over 54% of the abstracts fall into this category, and an average of 15% reflect the KM effect on general Performance. When looking at ICM papers, Innovation is dealt with in almost 19% of the abstracts, while general Performance in 11%. If we look at the evolution through the period analyzed (not included in the paper because of length constraints) there have been no important trends to note as the situation has remained relatively stable. 4.3. Type of article We have classified the articles in the following categories: Conceptual, empirical and literature review. Needless to say most papers simultaneously tackle the three issues. However, in order to fulfil one of the requirements of the content analysis (codification in just one category) we have classified as “literature review” only those considered as such by the authors and “conceptual” for those dealing with theoretical discussions with no practical applications or verifications. Table 4. Type of article. Total for the period TOTAL
Type of article Nº
%
Empirical
792
63,56
Conceptual
422
33,87
Literature review
32
2,57
Total publications
1246
100
Table 5. Type of article. Evolution: 1998-2007 Type of article
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Empirical
23
52,27
36
57,14
32
45,07
39
55,71
55
63,22
Conceptual
20
45,45
25
39,68
39
54,93
29
41,43
32
36,78
Literature review
1
2,27
2
3,17
-
-
2
2,86
-
-
Total publications
44
100
63
100
71
100
70
100
87
100
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Nº
%
Empirical
75
58,59
89
55,97
116
71,60
153
72,17
174
69,60
Conceptual
50
39,06
65
40,88
44
27,16
54
25,47
64
25,60
Literature review
3
2,34
5
3,14
2
1,23
5
2,36
12
4,80
Total publications
128
100
159
100
162
100
212
100
250
100
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Empirical papers are the most usual analysis type, with more than 63% of the total publications over the period, as shown in Table 4. However, how this proportion has increased since 2005, representing over 70% of the publications during the last three years, is shown in Table 5. This is very likely to be the result of the increased availability of data either being made public by companies or created by researchers. Literature Reviews have little significance during the whole period. Table 6. Type of article. Evolution 1998-2007. ICM vs. KM ICM 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Type of vs. Article KM % % % % % ICM 18,18 20,63 18,31 15,71 18,39 Empirical 34,09 36,51 26,76 40,00 44,83 KM 52,27 57,14 45,07 55,71 63,22 Empirical Total ICM 22,73 17,46 22,54 11,43 6,90 Conceptual KM 22,73 22,22 32,39 30,00 29,89 45,45 39,68 54,93 41,43 36,78 Conceptual Total 2,27 1,59 0,00 0,00 0,00 ICM Literature Review 0,00 1,59 0,00 2,86 0,00 KM Literature Review 2,27 3,17 0,00 2,86 0,00 Total 100 100 100 100 100
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
TOTAL
% 15,63 42,97 58,59 11,72 27,34 39,06 0,00 2,34
% 14,47 41,51 55,97 10,69 30,19 40,88 0,63 2,52
% 24,69 46,91 71,60 8,64 18,52 27,16 0,62 0,62
% 17,92 54,25 72,17 8,02 17,45 25,47 0,47 1,89
% 19,60 50,00 69,60 6,40 19,20 25,60 2,00 2,80
% 18,54 45,02 63,56 10,43 23,43 33,87 0,80 1,77
2,34 100
3,14 100
1,23 100
2,36 100
4,80 100
2,57 100
If we distinguish between ICM and KM papers as we do in Table 6 above, we see that the increase in empirical papers is larger in KM than in ICM. It is also interesting to remark that the percentage of ICM Conceptual papers has diminished very clearly during the period and even more sharply over the last 4 years of the analysis. A possible explanation for this, pending analysis of the papers in full, is that a convergence around IC concepts and typologies has taken place. 4.4. Theoretical bases As shown on Table 7 only 11% of the abstracts (137) include a reference to the theoretical base which shows how far off we are from consensus on this issue. Within those that do mention a theory, there is a clear pre-eminence of the Resource-based view (RBV) featured in 30,66% of the abstracts, followed by the Knowledge-based view (KBV) in 17,52 %. Some abstracts make reference to several theories together and there is a bunch of abstracts (24) than mention other different possible backgrounds. Table 7. Papers mentioning theoretical bases. Totals 1998-2007 Total Theories mentioned % papers
ICM Papers
KM Papers
Resource-based view
42
30,66
19
23
Knowledge-based view
24
17,52
3
21
Several theories mentioned
11
8,03
4
7
Theory of knowledge creation
10
7,30
2
8
Triple Helix approach
8
5,84
-
8
Innovation theory
3
2,19
1
2
Transaction cost theory
6
4,38
2
4
Systems theory
4
2,92
1
3
Theory of the firm
2
1,46
-
2
Management theory
3
2,19
-
3
Other
24
17,52
8
16
Papers with theoretical bases
137
100
40
97
% of papers with theoretical bases
137
11,00
In relation to the evolution throughout the period, the main point to mention is that the relative importance of the RBV has decreased over time, not because it is mentioned less but because of the emergence of the other theoretical references. With respect to all other theories no clear pattern is found over the period.
7
It is also interesting to note that the RBV is, relatively speaking, used more in ICM papers than in KM papers, while the opposite is true with respect to the KBV. This result backs up our a priori feeling about the ICM framework being broader than KM’s, taking into consideration not only intangible resources directly related to knowledge but also other types of intangibles. 4.5. Methodologies The research methods which come out of the codification process made are those shown in the following tables 8 and 9. We use the code “Public data” when it is clear in the abstract that the researchers are using publicly available material, such as company accounts, market figures, etc., and not mentioning other specific methodologies. We found it interesting to show this subcategory to see whether the availability of public information for researchers is increasing or decreasing. We are aware that in this category we are not adhering to one of the principles of content analysis methodology, because the subcategory “Econometric analysis”, used whenever it is explicitly stated by the authors, may include cases where the data come from a survey or other subcategory. Therefore, the codification complies with the “mutually excluded” requirement only formally. However, again, we wanted to see whether the available (or created) material allowed the use of quantitative techniques incrementally. For obvious reasons, only empirical papers have been included in this analysis. Table 8. Methodologies. Total for the period % of total empirical papers
% in ICM papers
% in KM papers
Methodology
Nº
Case studies
211
26,64
25,11
27,27
Survey
104
13,13
10,82
14,08
Public data
83
10,48
12,12
9,80
Econometric analysis
70
8,84
12,12
7,49
Combination of methodologies
41
5,18
3,90
5,70
Interviews
23
2,90
0,87
3,74
Other methodologies
16
2,02
3,46
1,43
N/A Total Empirical Publications
244 792
30,81 100
31,60 100
30,48 100
As mentioned before, the number of empirical papers has increased over the ten years of our analysis not only in absolute terms (from 23 to 174) but also relatively: in 1998, 52,27% of the papers were empirical in contrast to the last three years, when the average increased to 71,12%. When studying the methodologies used for such empirical analysis, some important issues emerge. First, it is very unfortunate that 244 abstracts out of the 792 classified as empirical do not specify the methodology used, since this excludes them from the analysis. Within those that do indicate the method followed, the most important are case studies, followed by surveys. If interviews are incorporated, qualitative methodologies are followed in at least 42,67% of the cases. The differences between ICM and KM papers in total terms are negligible.
Table 9. Methodologies. Evolution throughout the period 1998-2007. ICM vs. KM4. 1998 1999 2000 2001 ICM KM ICM KM ICM KM ICM KM Methodologies % % % % % % % % 25,00 40,00 30,77 34,78 30,77 21,05 32,14 Case studies 12,50 13,33 7,69 8,70 23,08 10,53 9,09 7,14 Survey Econometric 13,33 8,70 15,38 9,09 14,29 analysis 12,50 20,00 7,69 4,35 15,79 18,18 10,71 Public data 7,69 4,35 3,57 Combination
2002 ICM KM % % 25,00 41,03 12,50 7,69 18,75 0,00 6,25
2,56 5,13 10,26
4
The percentage in each cell shows the relative importance of each methodology with respect to the total number of ICM or KM papers in that particular year.
8
Interviews Other N/a Total publications
Case studies Survey Econometric analysis Public data Combination Interviews Other N/a Total publications
-
-
-
50,00
13,33
100
100
46,15
13,04 26,09
100
100
7,69 23,08
10,53 42,11
100
100
63,64
3,57 3,57 25,00
12,50 25,00
5,13 28,21
100
100
100
100
2003 ICM KM % % 35,0 30,91 - 12,73
2004 ICM KM % % 34,78 30,30 8,70 13,64
2005 ICM KM % % 22,5 30,26 10,0 19,74
2006 ICM KM % % 21,05 20,00 13,16 16,52
2007 ICM KM % % 24,49 21,6 12,24 14,4
TOTAL ICM KM % % 26,64 27,27 13,13 14,08
20,0 15,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 15,0
5,45 7,27 3,64 1,82 38,18
4,35 13,04 4,35 34,78
4,55 13,64 4,55 3,03 30,30
12,5 15,0 5,0 2,5 2,5 30,0
5,26 6,58 6,58 1,32 1,32 28,95
13,16 10,53 2,63 2,63 36,84
13,04 6,96 6,96 4,35 32,17
14,29 16,33 6,12 0,00 2,04 24,49
8,8 14,4 4,8 2,4 4,0 29,6
8,84 10,48 5,18 2,90 2,02 30,81
7,49 9,80 5,70 3,74 1,43 30,48
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
However, in spite of the absolute growth of these papers, the proportion of case studies to the total has decreased between 1998 and 2007 (32,5% vs 23%). Although the differences between ICM and KM in the use of methodologies are negligible, it can be seen that the use of econometric analysis is more important for ICM papers than KM’s, while for interviews it is the opposite. We should also mention that the use of case studies has held steady at about 25% for ICM while KM has decreased from 40% to 21,6%. Finally, it is interesting to note that the percentage of empirical abstracts with no defined methodology has decreased for ICM, from 50% to 24,5%.
4.6. Focussing on the Entities: Micro, meso and macro perspective The type of entity under analysis has been codified, differentiating between micro and macro institutions. The final grouping arrived at for the micro entities is the following: Multinational companies (MNE), Small and medium sized companies (SME), Universities and Research Centres (URC), Other public institutions (OPI), and Other. This latter group includes Non-Governmental Organizations, Non-profit making institutions, Spin-off and Start-ups, Cooperatives and Interface institutions. Table 10. Micro entities. Total for the period Abstracts mentioning Micro entities Total Total ICM % ICM/Total Micro entities % papers papers ICM papers 59 34,50 14 33,33 SME 47 27,49 8 19,05 URC 43 25,15 11 26,19 MNE 8 4,68 5 11,90 OPI 14 8,19 4 9,52 OTHER 171 100 42 100 Total papers
Total KM papers 45 39 32 3 10 129
% KM/ Total KM Papers 34,88 30,23 24,81 2,33 7,75 100
Only 171 of all the abstracts (12%) refer to what we have denominated micro entities. The most analyzed type is SMEs followed by Universities and Research Centres (URC), and by Multinational companies (MNE). It is interesting to note that while KM language is more widely used in relative terms for URC, ICM language appears more frequently in Other Public Institutions and those gathered under the heading “Others”. Looking at the evolution during the period (Table 11), the main thing to highlight is that Universities are an object of interest mainly between 2001 and 2005, with a decrease afterwards. In any case, the evolution in the proportion of papers dealing with one subject or another is so slow that it is difficult to come to any important conclusion. However, one fact that stands out in such table: the blanks in the cells, which indicate there are no papers dealing with this particular issue. The situation has clearly changed since 2003 when, in our opinion, papers not only started increasing, but were focusing more precisely on particular items. We have done a similar dynamic exercise differentiating between empirical, conceptual and literature review papers and the above mentioned trends, particular the importance of the attention to SMEs, are maintained. It may
9
also be interesting to note that for the total period, as could be expected, 136 of the abstracts dealing with a micro entity are empirical, 33 are conceptual and the very few remaining are literature reviews. Table 11. Micro entities. 1998-2007. ICM vs. KM. ICM Entities 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 TOTAL vs. KM (Micro) % % % % % % % % % % % 4,76 2,86 1,56 1,89 1,23 0,94 1,12 SME 1,59 0,78 1,23 1,42 1,6 0,88 MNE 1,41 1,43 0,78 1,26 1,23 0,47 0,64 URC 1,43 0,78 0,62 0,47 0,4 0,40 OPI ICM 0,63 0,47 0,8 0,32 Other ICM MicroEntities/Total 6,35 1,41 5,71 3,91 3,77 4,32 3,77 2,8 3,37 Publications 4,55 4,76 1,41 2,86 6,90 0,78 3,14 1,23 5,66 4,4 3,61 SME 3.17 2.82 4.29 4.60 4.69 5.66 4.32 2.36 0.40 3.13 URC 2,82 1,43 3,45 3,13 2,52 2,47 1,42 4,4 2,57 MNE 0,78 0,47 0,4 0,24 OPI KM 1,43 1,15 2,34 0,63 1,85 0,47 0,80 Other KM Micro Entities/Total 4,55 7,94 7,04 10,00 16,09 11,72 11,95 9,88 10,38 9,6 10,35 Publications Total MicroEntites each year / Total Micro Entities 1,17 5,26 3,51 6,43 8,19 11,70 14,62 13,45 17,54 18,1 100 General We have also codified the abstracts using a meso-macro perspective on the entities analysed. In line with this, the categories established are the following: Communities of practice, Clusters, Cities, Regions and Nations. There appears to be increasing concern about knowledge and intellectual capital management of these aggregates which is reflected, for example, in the conferences specifically related to them and we wanted to see how this interest has evolved and which one of the two languages (ICM or KM) was mostly used. Table 12 below shows the global situation for the period and table 13, the evolution. Table 12 Meso-Macro Entities Clusters Regions Nations
Total papers 41 27 18
% 38,68 25,47 16,98
Total ICM papers 9 12 8
% ICM/Total ICM papers 29,03 38,71 25,81
Total KM papers 32 15 10
% KM/ Total KM Papers 42,67 20,00 13,33
Communities of practices Cities Total
17
16,04
2
6,45
15
20,00
3 106
2,83 100
31
100
3 75
100
Looking at the total period, the meso group most analyzed is clusters followed by regions and nations. The differences between ICM and KM areas are clear here. Clusters and Communities of Practices have been the object of KM analysis, while regions and nations have been analyzed using an ICM perspective. The interest in Cities is anecdotal. Looking at the evolution during the period, we can see, again, a larger diversification of interests across the years. In fact, with some exceptions, regions and nations, and above all cities, really only emerge as subjects of interest in the second part of the period. Nevertheless, the percentage of papers dealing with these issues is so small that no real trends could be suggested. Table 13. Meso-macro entities. 1998-2007. ICM vs. KM ICM Entities 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 vs. (Meso% % % % % KM macro)
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
TOTAL
%
%
%
%
%
%
10
ICM
Region Nation Clusters
Communities of practice ICM Macro-Entities/ Total Publications KM Clusters Region Communities of practice Nation Cities KM Macro-Entities /Total Publications Total Macro-Entites each year / Total Macro Entities General
6,82 -
4,76 1,59
1,41 -
-
-
0,78 0,78
1,26 0,63 1,26
0,62 0,62 -
0,47 0,47 0,94
1,20 0,80 1,20
0,96 0,64 0,72
-
-
2,82
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
0,16
6,82 -
6,35 1,59 -
4,23 -
-
5,75 -
1,56 0,78 3,13
3,14 4,40 2,52
1,23 2,47 1,85
1,89 3,77 0,47
3,20 2,40 1,20
2,49 2,57 1,20
2,27 -
3,17 -
-
2,86 -
2,30 -
0,01
0,63 -
2,47 1,85 -
1,89 0,47 -
1,20 0,80 -
1,20 0,80 -
2,27
4,76
-
2,86
8,05
4,69
7,55
8,64
7,08
6,00
6,02
3,77
6,60
2,83
1,89
6,60
7,55
16,04
15,09
17,92
21,70
100
4.7. Countries. Out of the 1246 papers with an empirical analysis, only 368 mention one or several countries. There is a wide dispersion. There are very many cases where a particular country has been object of just one or two articles. To simplify the presentations these have been grouped by continents. The countries that stand alone with a relatively significant number of papers are Taiwan, Spain and China, followed by U.K., U.S. and Japan. Taiwan, Spain and the U.S. show some preference for ICM analysis, while China, Japan and other Asian countries deal more with KM.
Table 14. Abstracts focussing on particular countries COUNTRIES OTHER EUROPEAN TAIWAN SPAIN CHINA SEVERAL COUNTRIES COMPARED UK OTHER ASIAN & OCEANIAN US JAPAN AUSTRALIA GERMANY BRAZIL FRANCE OTHER AFRICAN ITALY NETHERLANDS CANADA OTHER AMERICAN TOTAL COUNTRIES
Nº 54 37 35 33
% 14,67 10,05 9,51 8,97
ICM 15 13 14 8
%ICM/Total ICM papers 13,39 11,61 12,50 7,14
KM 39 24 21 25
% KM/Total KM papers 15,23 9,38 8,20 9,77
31 28
8,42 7,61
11 8
9,82 7,14
20 20
7,81 7,81
27 22 20 14 9 10 9 8 8 8 8 7 368
7,34 5,98 5,43 3,80 2,45 2,72 2,45 2,17 2,17 2,17 2,17 1,90 100
4 12 3 6 1 2 2 4 3 1 2 3 112
3,57 10,71 2,68 5,36 0,89 1,79 1,79 3,57 2,68 0,89 1,79 2,68 100
23 10 17 8 8 8 7 4 5 7 6 4 256
8,98 3,91 6,64 3,13 3,13 3,13 2,73 1,56 1,95 2,73 2,34 1,56 100
The global evolution shown in Table 15 allows us to see that during the last three years more than 60% of the papers focussing on particular countries have been produced.
11
Interest in Taiwan and Spain has boomed since 2005 and, in the case of China, there is a growth pattern that reaches its peak with 19 papers in 2007. The UK is a special case where interest in ICM and KM issues was proportionally bigger in the initial years of the period. No other interesting patterns are found for other countries. Table 15. Countries. Evolution 1998-2007 Years Nº of abstracts % 1998 13 3,53 1999 19 5,16 2000 14 3,80 2001 16 4,35 2002 18 4,89 2003 29 7,88 2004 35 9,51 2005 57 15,49 2006 71 19,29 2007 96 26,09 Total 368 100 Except from the issues highlighted above no other patterns can be discerned in the evolution of the distinction between ICM and KM use. 4.8. Industries As in the country analysis, within the total papers only 392 (31,46%) refer to a particular industry in the abstract. Treating the results with great caution because of such a small percentage it is, however, clear that Manufacturing industries are analyzed more than Services. Within the former, Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals are the main industries addressed, while Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)5 and Public Services rank as the most important in the latter. Table 16. Abstracts mentioning a particular industry Industries Manufacturing
Sub-industries Biotechnology Pharmaceutical Construction Electronic Automobile Food & wine ICT Other N/a
Total manufacturing Services HEI ICT Public services Financial services Consulting Other N/a Total services Other Total industries
Nº
%
23 16 9 9 8 7 6 29 97 204 46 42 13 18 5 29 11 164 24 392
5,87 4,08 2,30 2,30 2,04 1,79 1,53 7,40 24,74 52,04 11,73 10,71 3,32 4,59 1,28 7,40 2,81 41,84 6,12 31,46
Looking at the evolution and distinguishing between ICM and KM papers, no important trends can be assessed to differentiate between the two areas, except that relatively more attention is given to services in ICM papers than in KM’s. It is also interesting to note the largest increase in papers during the whole period is found in electronic industries within manufacturing and in ICT and Finance within Services.
5
ICT is addressed sometimes as an industry (production of components, for example) and sometimes as a service provided.
12
Table 17 1998 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
Subindustries Biotechnology Pharmaceutical Food & Wine Construction Electronic Automobile ICT Other N/A Total manufacturing Total Other HEI ICT Financial Services Public Services Consulting Other N/A Total SERVICES Total Publications That Mention Subindustries %Publications that mention subindustries/total general publications Total general publications
Subindustrie s Biotechnolog y Pharmaceutic al Food & Wine Construction Electronic Automobile ICT Other N/A Total manufacturin g Total Other
4,00 4,00
5,26
5,26
8,57
20,00
4,76
36,00
8,00 4,00
8,00
4,00 4,00
2,63 7,89
3,45
10,53
10,34
5,26
3,45
13,64
11,90 2,38 4,76
10,53 5,26 5,26
13,73
13,64
15,79
3,92 3,92 15,69
13,64
8
6
15
6
19
17,24
19,05
31,58
29,41
27,27
29,23
29
42
19
51
22
65
7
8
5
5,26
48,00
28,00
21,05
19
25
25
38
2005 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
4,88
0,85
1,82
3,74
2,44 2,44 2,44
0,85 0,85
1,82
0,93 1,87
11,83 3,23
17,07
10,77 1,54 3,08 6,15 1,54 1,54 3,08 1,54 16,92
5,26 5,26
12
0,85 0,85 0,85
1,54 4,62
1,96
1
2004 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
5,88 4,55
3,45
4,76
2,44 2,44
1,54
9,80
6,90
1,08 6,45
3,92
5,26
12,00
1,08 1,08 1,08
5,26
2002 %IC %KM / M/ TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
2,38 4,76
2,63 2,63 10,53
1,08
2001 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL KM ICM
1,54 1,54
4,00 4,00 16,00
5,71 2,86
2000 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
3,45 0,00 3,45
12,00 4,00 4,00 8,00
4,00
2003 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 2,86
1999 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 8,00
2006 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 3,57
7,63
3,64 14,55
12,71 1,69
21,82 1,82
18,69 4,67
2007 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 4,29
TOTAL %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM
1,67
2,96
1,37
1,67 2,22 0,56
1,35 0,54 0,54 0,54
3,57 5,36
1,28 10,90
2,86 7,14
1,11 7,22 8,89
2,16 6,74
1,26 0,57 0,80 0,80 0,91 0,69 2,40 8,23
14,29
18,59 1,28
14,29 1,43
23,33 3,33
14,82 1,08
17,03 2,29
1,79 0,93 1,87 0,93 8,41
1,92
9,09
0,64 1,28 1,92 0,64
13
Subindustrie s ICT Financial Services Public Services Consulting Other N/A Total SERVICES Total Publications That Mention Subindustrie s %Publication s that mention subindustries / total general publications Total general publications
2003 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 2,86 4,30
2004 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 4,88 4,24
1,08
1,69
3,64
0,85
1,82
2,54
2,86
1,08
2,44
5,71 1,08
2005 %IC %KM M/ / TOT TOT AL AL ICM KM 9,09 5,61
%IC M/ TOT AL ICM 3,57
2006 %KM / TOT AL KM 1,92
2007 %IC M/ TOT AL ICM 4,29
%KM / TOT AL KM 1,67
%IC M/ TOT AL ICM 4,04
TOTAL %KM / TOT AL KM 3,09
1,87
3,57
1,28
2,86
1,11
2,16
1,14
3,57
0,64
2,86
3,64 1,82
0,93 0,93 1,87 0,00
1,79 1,79
0,64 0,64
2,86
0,56 1,11 3,33 1,11
1,89 0,27 2,96 0,81
0,69 0,46 2,06 0,91
14,29
15,05
12,20
16,10
23,64
17,76
16,07
8,97
14,29
8,89
14,56
12,57
12
28
12
36
26
44
17
45
21
64
113
279
34,29
30,11
29,27
30,51
47,27
41,12
30,36
28,85
30,00
35,56
30,46
31,89
35
93
41
118
55
107
56
156
70
180
371
875
4.9 Other issues Several concepts have been looked for in the abstracts. They are the following: Culture, Risk Management, Social Capital, Capital markets, Absorptive capacity, Policy issues, Networks. There are very few abstracts in which one of these concepts is mentioned so no trends can be guessed or conclusions made. For the analysis of these aspects it is necessary to look into the papers in full. Table 18. Other issues Issue Social Capital Absorptive Capacity Networks Risk Management Culture Policy Issues
Software Nº % 39 3,13% 39 3,13% 201 16,13% 49 3,93% 99 7,95% 18 1,44%
Manual Nº % 39 3,13% 50 4,01% 167 13,40% 31 2,49% 99 7,95% 118 9,47%
Table 18 shows, on the one hand, the results obtained with the initial manual analysis and, on the other, results obtained with the automatic software analysis. In two cases (Social Capital and Culture) the number of abstracts obtained in both procedures has been identical. In the remaining issues, there have been substantial differences. This is explained by the fact that some of the issues are not defined by a specific word and, in these cases, by reading the full abstract, a context is provided where special issues could emerge (i.e. policy issues) or be excluded (i.e. the word "network" which can also be a technical concept in computer technologies, an issue outside our interests). As mentioned at the beginning we were particularly interested in the policy issues which, even going beyond the word search into the realms of context, only appear in 9,47% of all papers. This, however, does not mean that the papers themselves do not reach conclusions for policy as the analysis of the complete papers may well yield conclusions and suggestions in that direction. 5. Main conclusions: Answered and unanswered questions. Ways forward
14
The qualitative and basic quantitative analysis made allows us to see some dynamics and provides an initial answer to the above questions. However, these results should be treated very cautiously because of the following shortcomings. First, the abstracts include what the authors believe relevant and the categories selected for the analysis may not coincide with the authors’ opinions. The complete papers may, in fact, refer to these categories by perhaps quoting a theoretical base or relating an issue to a particular industry or country, without explicitly mentioning it in the abstract. Therefore, our analysis could be based on a partial view of the whole picture. Secondly, some authors may refer to similar concepts using different words, which may have resulted in leaving out abstracts which should have been considered. Even so, some clear patterns seem to be emerging which allow for some initial results which would be further tested when analysing the papers thoroughly. They are the following. At the beginning of most of the following conclusions we add the question (indicated in point 3) which is at least partially answered. First. The interest in both issues (KM and ICM) has increased enormously during the last 10 years. Papers published in 2007 are 5 times those published in 1998. It is also interesting to remark that 50% of the decade’s total publications have been published in the last 3 years. Second. To what extent is IC terminology used in ISI Journals? Does the relative “youth” of the field affect the standard of the Journals in which papers on IC are published? As expected, Knowledge Management is a much wider field than Intellectual Capital in the literature. Out of the 1,246 abstracts reviewed 70% refer to the former and 30% to the latter. However the relative “youth” of the IC field does not seem to greatly affect the standards of the Journals in which papers on IC are published. If we look at papers published in ISI Journals, 76% are dealing with KM and 24% with ICM, and these percentages are not far from the general ones. Third. The number of papers presented in Conferences, particularly in ICM, has increased remarkably during the last years, which is probably the consequence of the more interest of academics and practioners in the field. Fourth. Have issues or topics of interest been emerging in recent years? Specific effects on Innovation appear more frequently in both KM and ICM papers, which represent 73,4% of the total abstracts reviewed. It should be noted that, over the last decade, focus on innovation has evolved from the more general to the more concrete issues related to specific industries, countries, micro- and macro-entities etc. Fifth. Have issues or topics of interest been emerging in recent years? 64% of all papers include some empirical analysis, but what is more interesting is that this percentage has risen to more than 70% over the last 3 years. This very clearly shows that there is an increasing amount of data readily available or created by the researchers. It is another fact that shows the awareness of these issues and the willingness of institutions to provide data. Conceptual papers, particularly those in ICM, have clearly diminished in recent years which might be an indicator of a certain agreement on IC concepts and typologies. Sixth. When comparing KM and ICM, are there differences in the theoretical base used? Is a “Theory on Intellectual Capital” emerging? The Resource-Based View and what we could call its more focussed version, the Knowledge-Based View, are the theoretical bases most referred to. No new theory of Intellectual Capital seems to be emerging although this conclusion needs much closer attention when analysing the papers in full. Seventh. Does the methodology used differ? Qualitative vs. quantitative methods of analysis. Which one is more common and in which issues? Qualitative methodologies of analysis are clearly predominant; case studies are used in almost 27% of the abstracts which mention a particular methodology. However, this methodology is proportionally decreasing over time because other methods, such as econometric analysis, are gaining ground. Clearly, the more readily available data, mentioned before, is influencing the methodologies used. There are no significant trends to remark on when looking at ICM vs. KM papers. Eighth. Without interest in the business sector diminishing, is increased concern about IC and KM in new areas (i.e. Universities or the Public Sector) and in meso/macro entities (i.e. Cities, Regions, Nations) being detected? When looking at the type of entities (micro, meso or macro) which are an object of interest, some trends emerge. As individual units of analysis the most studied are Small and Medium Enterprises, both from ICM and KM perspectives, followed by Universities and Research Centres which are mainly considered from a KM perspective. Multinational companies are the third type of unit also studied from the two perspectives. The tendency to produce empirical analysis instead of conceptual has increased over the period which might be reflecting the increased availability of data. When looking at aggregates we see fewer papers dealing with them and this reflects the newness of the interest in dealing with ICM or KM in an aggregated manner. The most dealt with are Clusters, particularly in KM papers, followed by Regions and Nations; in these two latter cases ICM is the predominant approach. The interest in all aggregates has clearly increased throughout the analysed period. Ninth. Which countries are analysed more in ICM? And in KM? When looking at the countries specifically studied we see a very diffused picture with some countries standing out. They are, in this order, Taiwan, Spain, China, U.K., U.S.A. and Japan. In Taiwan, Spain, U.K. and U.S.A. the ICM approach is more common, while in the others it is the KM approach.
15
In dynamic terms, we may say that the interest in focusing on particular countries has increased enormously during the last three years6 Tenth. Which sectors are analysed more in ICM? And in KM? When referring to particular industries, manufacturing is clearly addressed more than services. In the former, Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals have been most studied, with Biotech analyses mostly following an ICM approach and Pharmaceuticals using either indistinctly. With respect to services, HEI and ICT are the most tackled, followed by other Public and Financial Services. In all three cases ICM is the preferred approach. Eleventh. Is policy an issue explicitly addressed? Other issues, such as policy conclusions or suggestions were also explored, but there were too few cases where such concerns were mentioned in the abstract. As a final conclusion we would like to go back to the beginning: This is a very preliminary and simple descriptive analysis of a very complex issue that deserves a much more in-depth study. All conclusions should be treated with great caution until all the papers are fully analysed. The initial answers already provided to the questions raised will have to be revised and those still unanswered should be looked into. References: Beattie, V. and S.J. Thomson (2007) Lifting the lid on the use of content analysis to investigate intellectual capital disclosures. Accounting Forum Vol. 31, nº 2, June, pp. 129-163 Biemans, W. et al. (2007) Twenty years of the Journal of Product Innovation Management: History, participants and knowledge stock and flows. Journal of Product Innovation Management 24, 3, 193-213 Cañibano, L. García-Ayuso, M. and Sanchez, M.P. (2000) Acounting for intangibles: a Literature review. The Journal of Accounting Literature. vol. 19, 2000, pp. 102-13 Cañibano, L.; Sánchez, M.P.; García-Ayuso, M.; Chaminade, C. (2002). Guidelines for managing and reporting on Intangibles (Intellectual Capital Report). Vodafore Foundation. Cañibano, L.; Sánchez, M.P. (Eds.) (2004) Readings on Intangibles and Intellectual Capital. AECA, Madrid. Duriau, V.J. et al. (2007) A content Analysis of the Content Analysis Literature in organization Studies: Research Themes, Data Sources, and Methodological Refinements. Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 10, nº 1, pp. 5-30 Eby, L.T. et al.(2005) Work and family research in IO/OB: Content Analysis and review of the literature (19892002). Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 66, pp. 124-197 European Commission (2000) Innovation Policy in a knowledge-based economy. Enterprise Directorate General, EUR 17023 European Commission (2006) RICARDIS: Reporting Intellectual Capital to Augment Research, Development and Innovation in SMEs. Directorate General for Research, EUR 22095 Fernández Chaves, F. (2002) El análisis de contenido como ayuda metodológica para la investigación. Ciencias Sociales, Vol 2, nº 96. Junio, pp. 35-54 Foray (2004) The economics of knowledge. MIT Press Gil Urdiciain, B. (1994) Niveles de análisis documental de contenido. Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información, nº 17. Editorial Complutense. Madrid Guthrie, J. (2001) The management, measurement and the reporting of intellectual capital. Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol 2, n 1, 27-41 Guthrie, J., Petty, R., Yongvanich, K., Ricceri, F. (2003) Intellectual capital reporting: content approaches to data collection, paper presented at Performance Measurement Association Intellectual Capital Symposium, Cranfield, October 1-2 Hemmings, B. et al (2007) Academics´ views on publishing refereed works: A content analysis. Higher Education, Vol. 54, pp. 307-332 Kripperdorf (1990). Metodología de análisis de contenido. Teoría y práctica. Piados Comunicación. Lev, B. (2001) Intangibles: Management, Measurement and Reporting. Brookings Institution Press. McMillan, G.S. (2008) Mapping the invisible colleges or R&D Management. R&D Management, 38, pp. 69-83. Mulvey, M. and B. Stern (2004) Content Analysis Research Themes 1977-2000: evolution and Change. Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 31, pp. 728-734 Nelson, K.; McCann, J.E. (2008) Developing intellectual capital innovativeness through knowledge management. International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital. Vol 5 n. 2, pp 106-122 Nilsson, J. et al. (2007) International career articles: A content analysis of four journals across 34 years. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Nº 70, pp. 602-613 Nonaka, I. (1994) A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science. Vol. 5, nº 1º, pp. 14-37
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In order not to overload the paper with figures some of the dynamic visions (evaluation of different aspects) have not been included. Nevertheless they are available to all interested researchers.
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Nonaka, I. (2005). Knowledge Management: Critical perspectives on Business and Management. Taylor and Francis. London. OECD (1996) Employment and growth in the knowledge-based economy. Paris. OECD (2005). The Oslo Manual. OECD. Paris. Pittaway, L.; Cope, J. (2007) Entrepreneurship education – A systematic review of the evidence. International Small Business Journal, 25, pp. 479-510. Piñuel Raigada, J. (2002) Epistemología, metodología y técnicas del análisis de contenido. Estudios de Sociolingüistica, Vol 3. nº 1, pp 1-42 Quaddus, M. and J. Xu (2005). Adoption and diffusion of KM systems: Fields studies of factors and variables. Knowledge Based Systems, 18 (2-3); 107-115 Sanchez, M.P.; Chaminade, C.,; Olea, M. (2000) Management of intangibles: An attempt to build a theory. Journal of Intellectual Capital. Vol 1, 4, pp 312-327. Seemann, P.; de Long, D.; Stucky, S.; Guthrie, E. (2000). Building Intangible Assets: A Strategic Framework for Investing in Intellectual Capital. In Morey, D.; Maybury, M. and Thuraisingham, B (Eds.) Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Serenko, A. and N. Bontis (2004) Meta-Review of Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Literature. Citation Impact and Research Productivity Rankings. Knowledge and Process management, Vol. 11, nº 3, pp 185-198 Serenko, A.; Bontis; N. (2009) Global ranking of Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Academic Journals. Accepted for publication at Journal of Knowledge Management, Volume 13, 1. Stemler, S. (2001). An overview of content analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, Vol. 7, nº 17 Annex 1. LIST OF JOURNALS WHERE PAPERS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED Table A: ISI JOURNALS
Name of the Journal International Journal of Technology Management Technovation R & D Management Research Policy Journal of Product Innovation Management Strategic Management Journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change Academy of Management Journal Journal of Management Studies Research Technology Management Journal of Information Science Journal of Engineering and Technology Management Organization Science Harvard Business Review Management Science International Journal of Information Management Technology Analysis & Strategic Management Scientometrics Journal of Business Research California Management Review Mis Quarterly Long Range Planning International Journal of Manpower Industrial Marketing Management Total Quality Management & Business Excellence Journal of Operations Management Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization International Small Business Journal International Journal of Operations & Production Management European Planning Studies MIT Sloan Management Review Journal of Universal Computer Science
Number of papers published 88 51 40 28 26 25 20 14 14 12 12 12 11 11 10 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5
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Journal of Business Venturing International Journal of Production Research International Journal of Production Economics Expert Systems with Applications Academy of Management Review Management Learning Journal of Management Decision Support Systems International Journal of Management Reviews International Journal of Human Resource Management Information Economics and Policy Industrial and Corporate Change Ieee Transactions on Engineering Management Supply Chain Management-an International Journal Organization Studies Decision Sciences Journal of World Business Journal of Strategic Information Systems Information & Management Journal of Organizational Behavior Journal of Management Information Systems Journal of Information Technology British Journal of Management International Business Review Journal of Economic Geography Journal of Computer Information Systems European Journal of Operational Research International Journal of Industrial Organization Ecological Economics International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Systems Research and Behavioral Science Building Research and Information Growth and Change Service Industries Journal Accounting Organizations and Society Rand Journal of Economics Higher Education Public Administration Review Bt Technology Journal Academy of Management Executive International Journal of Vehicle Design International Marketing Review Industrial Relations Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research Accounting Review Journal of Organizational Change Management Human Relations Economic Record Journal of Marketing American Behavioral Scientist Journal of Construction Engineering and Management-Asce Journal of International Marketing Journal of International Business Studies Journal of Evolutionary Economics Arbor-Ciencia Pensamiento Cultura
5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1
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International Journal of Approximate Reasoning Journal of Economic Growth Journal of Economic Surveys Journal of Economics Journal of Economics & Management Strategy International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Journal of Engineering and Technology Management - JET-M Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control Journal of Global Information Management British Journal of Educational Technology Information Systems Research Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing Journal of Interactive Marketing Economics of Transition Journal of Documentation Journal of Labor Research Global Networks-a Journal of Transnational Affairs Journal of Management in Engineering Information Sciences Journal of Database Management Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing European Journal of Information Systems Computers in Industry Journal of Business Ethics Information and Communication Technologies and Real-Life Learning Journal of Business and Psychology Journal of Architectural and Planning Research Journal of the Operational Research Society Ergonomics International Social Science Journal Knowledge Organization Knowledge-Based Systems Kybernetes Land Economics Leadership Quarterly Local Government Studies Developing Economies Macroeconomic Dynamics Futures Business History Milbank Quarterly Cybernetics and Systems Environmental Modeling & Software National Tax Journal New Genetics and Society Omega-International Journal of Management Science Organization Educational Technology & Society Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Organizational Dynamics Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics Physica a-Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications Politicka Ekonomie Production and Operations Management Psychological Reports Public Administration and Development
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment Public Management Review Evaluation and Program Planning International Journal of Research in Marketing Environment and Planning C-Government and Policy American Review of Public Administration Review of Accounting Studies Review of Economics and Statistics Review of Financial Studies Science and Engineering Ethics Computers & Industrial Engineering Entrepreneurship and Regional Development Sloan Management Review Small Business Economics Small Group Research Social Science Information Sur Les Sciences Sociales South African Journal of Science Soziale Welt-Zeitschrift Fur Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung Und Praxis Administrative Science Quarterly Industrial & Labor Relations Review Systemic Practice and Action Research International Journal of Medical Informatics Teaching and Teacher Education Agricultural Systems Clinical Therapeutics Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology Telecommunications Policy Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie Creativity Research Journal Tourism Management Urban Studies Wirtschaftsinformatik
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Table B Non ISI JOURNALS
Name of the Journal Journal of Knowledge Management Journal of Intellectual Capital Industrial Management & Data Systems Knowledge and Process Management Management Decision European Journal of Innovation Management International Journal of Innovation and Learning International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management R & D Management The Business Review, Cambridge Periodica Polytechnica, Social and Management Sciences European Management Journal European Journal of Marketing VINE The Journal of Management Development Strategic Finance Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management International Journal of Business Performance Management Economia Industrial
Number of papers published 26 20 11 10 9 8 6 6 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3
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Team Performance Management Economics of Innovation and New Technology Regional Studies Public Manager Production Planning & Control Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD Observer Leadership & Organization Development Journal Etr&D-Educational Technology Research and Development AI & Society Journal of the Association for Information Systems Creativity and Innovation Management Journal of Management and Governance Journal of High Technology Management Research International Journal of Services Technology and Management International Journal of Management Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences-Revue Canadienne Des Sciences De L’Administration Human Resource Management International Digest Innovation : Management, Policy & Practice Industry and Innovation Clinical Leadership Management Review Industrielle Beziehungen Informacion Comercial Espanola Revista de Economia Information and Organization Information Management Journal Information Research-an International Electronic Journal Information Resources Management Journal Integrated Manufacturing Systems Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management Intereconomics International Food and Agribusiness Management Review International Journal of Accounting International Journal of Business Studies International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Canadian Public Administration-Administration Publique Du Canada International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital Geographia Polonica International Journal of Management & Decision Making International Journal of Manpower International Journal of Product Development International Journal of Services and Standards International Journal of Technology Policy and Management International Journal of Technology Transfer & Commercialisation International Journal of the Economics of Business International Public Management Journal J Hum Ergol (Tokyo) Jasss-the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation Journal of Accounting Research Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge Journal of Applied Business Research Journal of Business Strategies Journal of Business to Business Marketing Journal of Economics and Business Journal of Enterprise Information Management
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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Journal of European Industrial Training Journal of Financial Management and Analysis Journal of Financial Transformation Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Review Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics Journal of International Development Journal of International Management European Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services Journal of Rural Studies Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development Journal of Technology Transfer European Business Review European Accounting Review Liiketaloudellinen Aikakauskirja Logistics Information Management Management Accounting Management International Review Management Research News Managerial Auditing Journal MIS Quarterly Nase Gospodarstvo/Our Economy Computing & Control Engineering Journal Estudios Gerenciales Osaka Economic Papers Competitive Intelligence Review Engineering Management Journal Rand Journal of Economics Ekonomski Pregled Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management Revista de Historia Industrial Singapore Economic Review Strategic Communication Management Strategy and Leadership Technology Analysis and Strategic Management The American Economic Review Comparative Technology Transfer and Society The International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing The Journal of Business Strategy The McKinsey Quarterly Thunderbird International Business Review Defense & Security Analysis Construction Innovation International Journal of Biotechnology Industrial Management and Data Systems Zeitschrift Fur Personalforschung
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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