Measuring and managing intellectual capital in the U.S. aerospace industry

"Intellectual capital" has been heralded in business journals as an important component for successful business development in today's economy. Intellectual capital consists of knowledge-based assets -- including people, relationships, tools, and processes - that create value for a firm and its clients. Previous research has emphasized the financial measurement of intellectual capital, including the valuation of corporate intangible assets and the difference between a firm's market value and book value. Unfortunately, these financial measures are not very useful to practitioners, as they provide few insights about how to allocate resources, improve operations, or strategically plan for future needs. In this research, a new conceptual framework is developed for understanding the role of intellectual capital in new product development. The framework develops a dynamic model of the three forms of intellectual capital - human capital, structural capital, and relational capital -- and identifies mechanisms for knowledge transfer, organizational learning, and value creation. The framework is bolstered by data from case studies of seven product development projects at different U.S. aerospace firms.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Technology and Policy Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Siegel, Lawrence R

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric S. Rebentisch.

• Technology and Policy Program.
• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34532

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34532