Intellectual capital-based research impact management: a strategic approach to increase regional intellectual capital
| Date | 28 January 2025 |
| Pages | 24-42 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-04-2024-0115 |
| Published date | 28 January 2025 |
| Author | Marco Romano,James A. Cunningham,Giacomo Cuttone,Alessia Munnia,Melita Nicotra |
Intellectual capital-based research
impact management: a strategic
approach to increase regional
intellectual capital
Marco Romano
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
James A. Cunningham
Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University,
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Giacomo Cuttone
Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS), INFN, Catania, Italy, and
Alessia Munnia and Melita Nicotra
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
Abstract
Purpose –Entrepreneurial universities, through their intellectual capital (IC), can promote the development of a
third mission, which involves collaborating with business and societal organizations to create value. Joint
research projects are undertaken within entrepreneurial universities leveraging their IC. These generate value for
both the academic community and the territory as they generate impact, in terms of regional IC. At the micro
level, scientists in the principal investigator (PI) role are influential actors in generating impact and IC that is
beneficial for all joint project stakeholders. The purpose of the paper is to address the existing gap in
entrepreneurial university literature concerning the impact generation process.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper represents a theoretical contribution adopting a deductive approach.
Findings –This paper proposes a novel approach to support PIs in entrepreneurialuniversities in the process of
managing innovative initiatives toward IC impact generation. First, we present the IC-based Research Impact
Tool (ICRIT) to guide PIs acting as explorative entrepreneurs; then we propose an IC-based Research Impact
Report (ICRIR) including some key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate impact and IC.
Research limitations/implications –The theoretical approach proposed could be developed further.This could be
furthered through more empirical studies using initially,forexample, comparative cross-country case study research.
Originality/value –The paper sheds new light on the importance of the final impact generated by research
initiatives, focusing on the crucial role played by PIs and promoting the adoption of an IC-based strategic
approach, to maximize the final impact of projects, in terms of regional IC.
Keywords Intellectual capital, Research evaluation, Impact reporting, Entrepreneurial university,
Principal investigator, Impact, Regions
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
Intellectual capital (IC) is an essential element for value creation in organizations. Theconcept
of IC was initially analyzed in for-profit enterprises and later extended to public and non-profit
JIC
26,7
24
© Marco Romano, James A. Cunningham, Giacomo Cuttone, Alessia Munnia and Melita Nicotra.
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article
(for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and
authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
This study was funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU, Mission 4, Component 2, in the
framework of the GRINS -Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable project (GRINS PE00000018 – CUP
E63C22002120006). The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect those of the European Union, nor can the European Union be held responsible for them.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 18 April 2024
Revised 23 July 2024
Accepted 24 July 2024
Journalof Intellectual Capital
Vol.26 No. 7, 2025
pp.24-42
EmeraldPublishing Limited
e-ISSN:1758-7468
p-ISSN:1469-1930
DOI10.1108/JIC-04-2024-0115
organizations (Benevene and Cortini, 2010;Bueno Campos et al., 2006) with some interest in
the management of universities, as their main inputs and outputs are intangible assets and
knowledge (Chau et al., 2017;Mariani et al., 2018;Secundo et al., 2015,2017a,b,2018). In
response to social, economic, cultural and political changes, European universities are moving
towards the adoption of the emerging entrepreneurial university model (Menter, 2024;
Thomas et al., 2023).
As economies evolve, there is a need to create and maintain networks of knowledge, to
combine knowledge theory and business practice, to strengthen the cooperation between two
different environments, research and business, in order to obtain economic and social outputs,
outcomes and impacts (Del Giudice and Maggioni, 2014). Entrepreneurial universities have
responded to challenges and demands by becoming increasing engaged in third mission
activities, collaborating with industry and in the technology transfer process (D’este and
Perkmann, 2011;Nicotra et al., 2021). Part of their mission of an entrepreneurial university as
an anchor institution is to promote such a cooperation in the network of knowledge within and
beyond the territory they inhabit (Zaharia and Gibert, 2005). Within regions, entrepreneurial
universities can contribute to the development of heterogeneous networks and can facilitate
the exchange of tacit knowledge, the formation of communities of practice and the greater
access to advanced human resources (Lave and Wenger, 1991). As Trequattrini et al. (2018)
argue, entrepreneurial universities are a critical regional actor in developing and enhancing
intellectual property.
As national and European funding programmes increasingly require collaborative
arrangements between local and regional businesses and entrepreneurial universities
through more mission orientated initiatives, they provide a basis to generate regional IC.
Such joint collaborative projects can have direct impact on businesses and indirect
knowledge spillover effects (see Secundo et al., 2021;Bamford et al., 2023). For the
purposes of this paper, we define impact in broad terms that considers the persistence in
time and scope of the short-term results. Impact can be measured in terms of IC creation (see
Trequattrini et al., 2018). Against this background, the aim of our paper is to address the gap
in the entrepreneurial university literature, proposing a novel Intellectual Capital-based
Research Impact Management (ICRIM) approach. This is a way both to manage and
measure the impact of research projects developed by entrepreneurial university jointly
with other organizations, in terms of IC management and measuring. In the process of
ICRIM, principal investigators (PIs) play a strategic value creation role in the development
and exploitation of intellectual property and act as boundary spanners between businesses
and entrepreneurial universities (see Mangematin et al., 2014). Moreover, as Cunningham
et al. (2016a,b, p. 779) argue that PIs “are the linchpins of knowledge transformation
through articulation of research programmes . . .” and as well shaping new scientific
avenues the role also involves extensive engagement with external businesses throughout a
funded project’s lifecycle (Boehm and Hogan, 2014;Feeney and Welch,2014). A scientist
takes on the role through securing competitive funding to lead a research programme or
activity, and the PI is responsible for all aspects of project management and delivery
(Cunningham et al., 2016b). Part of the PI role is to realize project impacts in the main
focusing on realizing scientific, technological, market and economic impacts (see
Cunningham et al., 2020).
To support the realization of entrepreneurial university’sthird mission objectives, at
the micro level, it is necessary for scientists in the PI role to develop an entrepreneurial
orientation (see Romano et al., 2017;Casati and Genet, 2014). Such a mindset enables
PI to capitalize IC developed in universities, addressing their activities to the creation of
spin-off companies or other appropriate technology transfer mechanisms, thus changing
their project administrator state of mind. Their actions should be considered in a direct
way of transferring scientific knowledge to markets and contributing to economic
growth. In their role, PI can influence and shape knowledge creation and exploitation of
public research (see Cunningham et al., 2016a,b,2022). One of the functional activities
Journal of
Intellectual
Capital
25
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