A Survey on Intangible Capital

This study provides a survey of topics related to intangible capital, including concepts, definitions, measurement issues, and classifications. It shows that despite the growing importance of intangible capital, we do not know enough about it and only have imperfect methods of measuring it. While at the macroeconomic level, measurement of intangibles is now available for many countries, definitional and measurement issues pose a greater problem at the microeconomic level. This study points out that researchers not only have to confront data deficiencies but also need to grapple with conceptual issues. Finally, it also provides brief surveys of studies dealing with particular detailed topics. Many of these studies prove the existence of intangible capital at the microeconomic level as well as at macroeconomic level.

Towards designing a sustainable is-enabled service delivery system

This paper aims to bring into focus the concept of service sustainability. The normative literature advocates that services by companies, government institutions and service delivery are still posing great challenges to many organizations in this digital age. In highlighting the distinctive feature of service innovation, businesses will be able to maintain competitive advantage. In examining the literature on the service concept, successful companies have the customer at the forefront of their business strategy. As a result, the authors formulate suggestions on the most effective way an organization and the people concerned, can recast strategic thinking. to anticipate and adapt to ever increasing changing service environment. The contribution of the study is an IS-enabled Service Delivery Model (SDM) that places customer and staff as an integral part of the service delivery system with managed interactions and continuous quality control. This intends to support practitioners and researchers which could provide the former useful means of conceptualizing service, and raises an important issue to the latter in revisiting service quality research

An Ontology for Product-Service Systems

Industries are transforming their business strategy from a product-centric to a more service-centric nature by bundling products and services into integrated solutions to enhance the relationship between their customers. Since Product- Service Systems design research is currently at a rudimentary stage, the development of a robust ontology for this area would be helpful. The advantages of a standardized ontology are that it could help researchers and practitioners to communicate their views without ambiguity and thus encourage the conception and implementation of useful methods and tools. In this paper, an initial structure of a PSS ontology from the design perspective is proposed and evaluated

Interventions at the end of life – a taxonomy for ‘overlapping consensus’

Context: Around the world there is increasing interest in end of life issues. An unprecedented number of people dying in future decades will put new strains on families, communities, services and governments. It will also have implications for representations of death and dying within society and for the overall orientation of health and social care. What interventions are emerging in the face of these challenges? Methods: We conceptualize a comprehensive taxonomy of interventions, defined as ‘organized responses to end of life issues’. Findings: We classify the range of end of life interventions into 10 substantive categories: policy, advocacy, educational, ethico-legal, service, clinical, research, cultural, intangible, self-determined. We distinguish between two empirical aspects of any end of life intervention: the ‘locus’ refers to the space or spaces in which it is situated; the ‘focus’ captures its distinct character and purpose. We also contend that end of life interventions can be seen conceptually in two ways – as ‘frames’ (organized responses that primarily construct a shared understanding of an end of life issue) or as ‘instruments’ (organized responses that assume a shared understanding and then move to act in that context). Conclusions: Our taxonomy opens up the debate about end of life interventions in new ways to provide protagonists, activists, policy makers, clinicians, researchers and educators with a comprehensive framework in which to place their endeavours and more effectively to assess their efficacy. Following the inspiration of political philosopher John Rawls, we seek to foster an ‘overlapping consensus’ on how interventions at the end of life can be construed, understood and assessed

Innovation in Services - Theoretical Approach

The aim of this article is to present the evolution of theoretical studies on service innovation. The author also attempts to put these different approaches to service innovation into order and to indicate the possible forms of service innovation that emerge from these researches. In further part of the article the issue of the availability of statistical data and its relevance to the possible forms of service innovation, as well as some changes that has been implemented recently in order to improve this relevance, are discussed.Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie ewolucji teoretycznych badań nad innowacjami w usługach. Autorka podejmuje również próbę uporządkowania różnych podejść do kwestii innowacji usługowych oraz wskazać możliwe formy tych innowacji, wyłaniające się z analizowanych badań. W dalszej części artykułu, podejmowana jest kwestia dostępności danych statystycznych oraz ich adekwatności, jeśli chodzi o możliwość zastosowania do analizy różnych form innowacji usługowych. Omawiane są również wprowadzone ostatnio zmiany, mające na celu poprawę adekwatności tych danych

Towards an advanced impact analysis of intangible resources in organisations

The paper refers to the discussion of measuring and assessing knowledge capital. In particular, the interconnectedness of the intangible resources in organizations is not well represented in the methodical approaches. Moreover, the identification of driver resources which is strongly connected with this question is far from being solved in a satisfactory manner. Therefore, this article reviews existing methods of the scenario analysis in view of the performance measurement discussion and contributes towards an advanced analysis of resources in organizations. --ADVIAN method,driver,impact analysis,intangible resource,knowledge capital,MICMAC method,performance measurement system

Knowledge Economy Dimensions

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the emergent knowledge economy and its dimensions. The knowledge economy is based primarily on the development of intangibles, and knowledge processing. The knowledge revolution is changing the way we think and work, and the knowledge worker reflects the nature of the new economic driving forces. The knowledge economy opens new directions, and offers unprecedented opportunities to produce and sell on a mass scale, reduce costs, and customize to the needs of consumers, all at the same time. The dimensions of this new economy are the following: economic and institutional regime, education and skills, information and communication infrastructure, and the innovation system. Based on these dimensions, the World Bank Institute developed two important indices: the Knowledge Index (KI), and the Knowledge Economy Index (KEI).intangible; knowledge; knowledge economy; knowledge economy index.

ECONOMIC MEASUREMENTS OF SOCIAL AND INTANGIBLE ASSETS: WHERE DOES ROMANIA STAND AT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

Sustainable economic development, no matter the geographical area it is applied to, relates to improving living standards and incorporates a new focus and challenge for the economy: the measurement of intangible and social assets. This article aims to present Romania’s ranking among other countries. First of all, it analyses the rationale for measuring social aspects, in the context of the emrging new economy. The essential point here is that investing in intangibles produces more welfare on long term and improves labour productivity, creating a more competitive and knowledge based economy and society. Secondly, several indices are presented and the ranking for Romania is analysed, in order to provide a systematic view and debate upon the importance of social and intangible assets and their ways of measurement at a country level. We consider that our study's results are just a starting point for possible future theoretical and empirical investigations. This paper seeks to develop in Romania a framework of understanding the value of social and intangible assets and their importance for sustainable development. We appreciate that such a study could be a quite useful approach for both the academic and business communities in our country.knowledge economy, intangible assets, sustainable development,economic development, globalisation

An Innovation Index Based on Knowledge Capital Investment: Definition and Results for the UK Market Sector

We (a) propose an implementable innovation index, (b) relate it to existing innovation definitions and (c) show whole-economy and industry-specific results for the UK market sector, 2000-2005. Our innovation measure starts by observing that we could get more GDP without innovation by simply duplicating existing physical capital and labour (e.g. adding a second aircraft and crew on an existing route). Thus we propose to measure innovation as the additional GDP over and above the addition existing physical capital and labour. In our measure this is the contribution to GDP growth of market sector investment in knowledge (or intangible) capital. This contribution is measured from company spending on knowledge/intangible assets and TFP growth. We relate our measure to the literature on innovation definitions, TFP, creative industries and hidden innovation. We implement it for six UK market sector industries, 2000-2005, combining with output and tangible investment data from the EUKLEMS database. Our main findings are as follows. Over 2000-2005, market sector labour productivity grew at 2.74% per annum, of which the contribution of knowledge capital, our innovation measure, was 1.24% pa. In turn, manufacturing accounted for about 60% of this latter figure. If one includes increase in labour skill deepening (0.45% pa) as innovation, then innovation contributed 61% (=(1.24+0.45)/2.74)of labour productivity growth over the period.innovation, productivity growth