A method for comprehensive intellectual capital management and reporting. The case of BOC Information Systems
| Pages | 93-108 |
| Date | 16 January 2009 |
| Published date | 16 January 2009 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14691930910922923 |
| Author | Dimitris Karagiannis,Martin Nemetz,Franz Bayer |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance,HR & organizational behaviour,Information & knowledge management |
A method for comprehensive
intellectual capital management
and reporting
The case of BOC Information Systems
Dimitris Karagiannis and Martin Nemetz
Department of Knowledge and Business Engineering,
Faculty of Computer Science, Universita
¨t Wien, Vienna, Austria, and
Franz Bayer
BOC Information Systems GmbH, Vienna, Austria
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to present the ICRB method, a comprehensive framework for intellectual
capitalmanagement that has been applied at a knowledgecompany, BOC IS GmbH (BOC).As nowadays
a great variety of diverseconceptions of intellectual capital management and reporting approaches are
discussed in both practitioner and academic journals and at conferences, one of the next steps in
intellectual capital research could be the comprehensive management of an organisation’s intangible
assets; opting fora special intellectualcapital reporting method will no longerbe a first-choice decision.
Togetherwith BOC, this paper seeks to illustrateboth a management method and a tool that allowseasy
and intuitive management and reporting of an organisation’s intellectual capital.
Design/methodology/approach – By relying on method engineering as well as on the modelling
approach, comparable and expressive means for managing and reporting an organisation’s intellectual
capital will be presented.
Findings – The paper depicts the outcome of the application of the ICRB method in the knowledge
company BOC for managing and reporting intellectual capital.
Research limitations/implications – The range of the presented application of the ICRB method
is limited to BOC’s pre-sale activities and processes.
Practical implications – When applying the ICRB method, managers, employees, external
stakeholders, experts and academics can proceed on the question of how to achieve comparable and
expressive intellectual capital reports.
Originality/value – The paper aims to go one step further in the research of intellectual capital
management and offers a way to unify and compare diverse intellectual capital reporting conceptions.
Keywords Intellectualcapital, Financial reporting, Benchmarking
Paper type Case study
Introduction
Since the mid-1990s, research on intellectual capital (IC) as well as on its adequate and
effective management and reporting has primarily focused on the creation of methods
to perform these management tasks. Since that time, there has been significant growth
in the literature (Serenko and Bontis, 2004). However, it seems that since the IC
community has seen hundreds of present ations and publications on diverse
conceptions for IC management and reporting, the next level of research should be
entered (Lev, 2003; Marr and Chatzkel, 2004). A potential fruitful field of rese arch that
may follow this recommendation might be the conception of a generic and
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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IC management
and reporting
93
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 10 No. 1, 2009
pp. 93-108
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/14691930910922923
comprehensive method for IC management and reporting, which covers knowledge
and experience that have been acquired in the last ten years or so. Especially when
looking at 15 famous and often-cited concepts, the discrepancy concerning the content
and expressiveness of available IC reporting conceptions becomes apparent. In fact,
various dimensions of IC management and reporting approaches can be identified:
.American (deductive-sum mary) versus Scandinav ian (inductive-analyti cal)
concepts (Daum, 2003).
.Value creation versus value extraction (Andriessen, 2004).
.Monetary versus non-monetary concepts – the focus rests on the result that an
IC report provides. In the former case, the final product is monetarily measurable;
in the latter, the output is a rather qualitative one.
Figure 1 provides an overview on the above-given classification based on 15 famous
and often-cited conceptions on IC management and reporting by taking into account
the three categorisation criteria that have been derived from the academic literature of
the preceding years (North, 1998; Mouritsen et al., 2001; Guthrie et al., 2001; Schneider,
2001; Daum, 2003; Andriessen, 2004; Bornemann, 2004).
The conceptions in the bottom left corner of the coordination system provide numbers
in a very straightforward and simple way and represent simple approximations of an
organisation’s IC. A deeper analysis of this cannot be performed solely by relying on these
Figure 1.
Classification of 15
conceptions for IC
management and
reporting
JIC
10,1
94
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