Intellectual capital and university performance in emerging countries. Evidence from Colombian public universities
| Date | 08 January 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-02-2017-0037 |
| Published date | 08 January 2018 |
| Pages | 71-95 |
| Author | Livio Cricelli,Marco Greco,Michele Grimaldi,Leidy Paola Llanes Dueñas |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,HR & organizational behaviour,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting & Finance,Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting |
Intellectual capital and
university performance
in emerging countries
Evidence from Colombian public universities
Livio Cricelli
University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy
Marco Greco
Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering,
University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy
Michele Grimaldi
University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy, and
Leidy Paola Llanes Dueñas
Department of General Economics, Universidad de Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and
performance of public universities in emerging countries in order to identify patterns and provide
recommendations that may turn the universities’IC into development opportunities, in terms of research,
innovation, and education.
Design/methodology/approach –The analysis targeted the whole population of the public universities in
the Republic of Colombia. A cluster analysis, based on five performance variables, has been conducted.
Then, the IC of the universities pertaining to the three resulting clusters has been compared. Subsequently,for
each performance variable, the IC of above-average and below-average universities has been benchmarked.
Findings –The results of this study show how different aspects of IC are associated with University
performance. Among the many, the authors found that universities should achieve a critical mass to obtain
outstanding research and innovation results. The findings also identify the particular importance of both
students and scholars’international mobility programs for most of the performance variables.
Social implications –This study provides a baseline for the assessment of the impact on society of the IC
available in the universities of emerging countries. The application may serve as a guide in the choice of
public policies, dedicated to the strengthening of the universities’IC in order to improve their performance.
Originality/value –This paper proposes an inn ovative model to analyze the relatio nship between IC and
university performan ce in emerging countries. The model i dentifies the association betwe en the IC accrued
in the universities and the ir capability of transferring it to t he society under the form of science, inn ovation,
and education.
Keywords Universities, Emerging countries, Intellectual capital, Education, Republic of Colombia,
University performance
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the era of “knowledge-based economy,”knowledge-intensive subjects such as universities
are central to the economic development (OECD, 1996). Several authors have reported the
important contribution of universities to the innovation systems of countries (Sánchez and
Elena, 2006; Brătianu, 2009; Lu, 2012; Dumay et al., 2015; Secundo et al., 2016), and to their
economic development (Drucker, 1994; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000).
The investigationson the economics of emerging countriesshowed that to higher levels of
education correspond highereconomic growth, and that the governments’interventions could
enhance their economies by leveraging knowledge and skills (Glewwe, 2002; Drucker, 2012).
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 19 No. 1, 2018
pp. 71-95
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-02-2017-0037
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
71
IC and
university
performance
Therefore, the governments of developing countries should nurturetheir national intellectual
capital (IC) (Aubert and Reiffers, 2003) through policies aimed to remodel the structure of
primary, secondary, and tertiary education (Weber, 2011).
Recently, universities in many countries have undergone an analytical process of internal
organization in order to enhance their IC. Similarly to other productive organizations,
universities are now also required to become increasingly competitive and must valorize their
capital. The role of IC in universities is critical, as universities are the focus of intangible
activities: professors are repositories of knowledge and transmit it to students (Ortega, 2013;
Sánchez, 2008; Silvestri and Veltri, 2011; Stewart, 1997; Vidrascu, 2016). Universities themselves
are “loci”of knowledge as any kind of activity inside them is strictly related to develop and
transmit knowledge (Fazlagic, 2005; Leitner, 2004). Nonetheless, in this competitive era, the role
of universities should not be restricted to knowledge dissemination, but also to its valorization
(Campos, 2003; Feng et al., 2012; Lu, 2012; Ramírez Córcoles and Santos Peñalver, 2013;
Secundo et al., 2016). To this aim, the contemporary university needs to assess its own IC.
The capability of disclosing the universities’IC can be tackled, among the several other methods,
by trying to assess the universities’performance. University performance has a
multidimensional nature and its assessment requires the research of appropriate indicators
and of methods for representing and measuring the components of the performance itself.
This requirementis even more compelling in theemerging countries, the economyof which
is mostly based on tangible assets and neglects the intangible ones (Maditinos et al., 2011).
In consequenceof the relevant asymmetry ofknowledge distribution in favorof the developed
countries (Seleim et al., 2004; Abeysekera, 2007), the emergingcountries, which are still unable
to take advantage of R&D and IC as drivers of growth and development, should utilize the
wide spectrum of non-saturated IC activities by increasing human capital endowment and
university performance (Kianto, 2007; Ståhle and Bounfour, 2008).
In the light of what has been observed so far, it seems necessary to dispose off a method
for evaluating production, accumulation, and transfer of universities’IC in order to assess
their contribution to the economic development of countries, as solicited from many sides
(McGillivray, 1991; Tezanos and Sumner, 2013).
The analysis of the literature shows tha, while several papers have dealt with the
assessment of universities’IC (Araujo, 2000; Bezhani, 2010; Campos, 2003; Cañibano and
Sanchez, 2008; Ramírez Córcoles et al., 2011; Silvestri and Veltri, 2011), few studies have
investigated the relationship existing between the IC of the universities and their
performance (Brătianu, 2009; Bueno et al., 2014; Kianto, 2007; Secundo et al., 2016). To date,
not enough attention has been paid to the quantitative analysis of the IC value creation
process in universities. In this paper, we mean by value the capability of transferring to the
society the IC derived from technology, innovation, research, marketable and applicable
skills, and relationships between academic institutions and industry.
This paper aims to explore the relationship between IC and performance of universities
in emerging countries, in order to identify patterns and provide recommendations that may
turn the universities’IC into development opportunities. We chose the Colombian public
universities as a suitable target for our exploratory analysis. Indeed, the Republic of
Colombia represents a typical emerging country showing a transition phase from low
educational standards, low tertiary attainment, inadequate infrastructure, high level of
inequality and suboptimal ICT and scientific infrastructures (OECD, 2012) toward a more
knowledge-oriented condition supported by IC investments.
We identified suitable IC and performance variables from official and publicly available
databases. We performed a cluster analysis based on five performance variables, followed
by a comparison of the IC of the universities pertaining to the three resulting clusters.
Subsequently, for each performance variable, we compared the IC of above-average and
below-average universities.
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