Methods of evaluation of intangible assets and intellectual capital
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-12-2016-0138 |
| Date | 10 July 2017 |
| Pages | 470-485 |
| Published date | 10 July 2017 |
| Author | Marilei Osinski,Paulo Mauricio Selig,Florinda Matos,Darlan José Roman |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,HR & organizational behaviour,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting & Finance,Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting |
Methods of evaluation of
intangible assets and
intellectual capital
Marilei Osinski and Paulo Mauricio Selig
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Florinda Matos
Intellectual Capital Accreditation Association, Santarém, Portugal, and
Darlan José Roman
Universidade do Oeste de Santa Catarina, Chapecó, Brazil
Abstract
Purpose –The competitive model has changed. In this context, society entered into an era in which
intangible assets are the greatest assets of a company. However, some gaps and uncertainties are presented in
the literature as to understand the value of a company based on knowledge intensive activities. The purpose
of this paper is to analyze the methods of evaluation of intangible assets in the context of business, economic
and strategic management.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a qualitative research. This research is characterized as
descriptive, bibliographic, inductive.
Findings –The main results of this research can highlight the existence of valuation methods of intangible
assets intended for specific industries, as public and/or private, that can be better aligned to the context of
business; economic and/or strategic management.
Originality/value –It was found that intangible assets are a current topic and increasingly addressed in
the literature.
Keywords Methods, Intellectual capital, Intangible assets, Methods of evaluation,
Methods of evaluation of intangible assets
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
The world economy has been through constant and significant transformations. One of the
main effects of such transformations is the increase in the value of intangible assets,
considering sources of organizational value generation. With the globalization of
the economy, there is a greater demand for information, imposing, among others,
changes in the way of measuring the patrimony of the organizations (Scherer et al., 2004).
Intangible assets, in this context, are increasingly important, influencing organizational
competitiveness (Sveiby, 2010). Among the authors of the area, stands out Sveiby, who
published several studies, serving as inspiration for this work. The purpose of this research
is to analyze the methods for evaluating intangible assets in the context of business,
economic and strategic management.
Several studies dealing with intangible assets and intellectual capital have been
developed (Stewart, 1997; Bontis et al., 1999; Sullivan, 2000; McPherson and Pike, 2001;
Silva et al., 2002; Milost, 2007). Among these studies, some authors consider intangible
assets as synonymous with intellectual capital and others that treat them as distinct themes.
Sveiby (2004) considers intellectual capital as a strategic and unlimited resource.
According to Lev (2001), the terms intangible assets (in the accounting literature), assets
based on knowledge (by economists) and intellectual capital (in the areas of management
and law) can be used interchangeably. In practice, these terms essentially correspond to a
non-physical entitlement to future benefits. Knowledge-based assets are characterized by
being expensive to acquire and develop and difficult to manage.
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 18 No. 3, 2017
pp. 470-485
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-12-2016-0138
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
470
JIC
18,3
Hoss et al. (2009) argue that intangible assets are sources of sustainable competitive
advantage for organizations. In addition, they emphasize the importance of a method of
valuing intangible assets to support various administrative issues, such as investment
decisions, negotiations with lenders, and raising of investors’capital.
After this introduction section, the structure of this study presents, in the following
section, the literature review, dealing with the methods of evaluation of intangible assets
and intellectual capital. The following, are the methodological procedures and the data
analysis and, finally, the final considerations followed by the references.
2. Intellectual capital
Today, organizations compete based on their intellectual assets, in a knowledge economy,
where functions, which require more skills, are performed by knowledge workers, and the
organizations that improve from their past experiences are learning organizations. In this
scenario of innovation, with the constant need of organizations to search for better products
and services, it is the intellectual capital of companies that increasingly determines their
competitive positions (Klein, 1998).
According to Rodrigues et al. (2009), the intellectual capital consists of the ability of a
given organization to transform its knowledge and intangible assets into wealth, as well as
resource creation. The management of intellectual capital, in turn, is considered to be the
process of extracting the value of knowledge. They, also, point out that all intangible
resources are considered as intellectual capital, whose components are human capital,
structural capital and relational capital.
Lev (2001) points out that intellectual capital can be created by human resources, with
innovation and organizational practices. In this sense, structural capital is the result of the
sum of the knowledge of all members of the organization. Intellectual capital does not have a
physical or financial body, but is considered as a right to future benefits. Knowledge is
currently one of the main competitive tools and it is in human capital that all innovations are
initiated (Hoss et al., 2009).
According to Rocha (2012), the human capital of an organization is composed by
competencies, knowledge, capacities, talents and know-how, attitudes, ducts, motivation,
performance and ethics of the people, values, attitudes, creative capacity and innovation,
satisfaction and loyalty, as well as intellectual agility, dexterity and experiences of
employees and directors.
Structural capital, in turn, is what the organization can absorb from its employees, even
when they stop working in there. It consists of the set of intangible assets and knowledge
arising from organizational processes, which are owned by the organization and remain the
same when employees leave it (Bueno et al., 2011).
Bueno et al. (2011) defines relational capital as the set of skills that are incorporated into
the organization and to the individuals that belong to it. Relational capital results from
relationships with different agents in the market and with society in general.
According to Rezende (2001), the intellectual capital is composed by intangible assets
that can be divided into three distinct categories: market assets, individual competence
assets and structure assets. It should be noted that the descriptions of these elements are
similar to those presented by Lev (2001), Rodrigues et al. (2009) and Rocha (2012).
In this context, it becomes relevant and necessary to identify how intellectual
capital can influence the value of a company; how to measure it and/or determine its value,
as well as understand how organizational knowledge can be measured (Wernke, 2002).
Joia (2001) emphasizes that despite the difficulty, it is not impossible for knowledge
(intangible) to be measured. It emphasizes that markets, when assessing the actions of
some companies based on knowledge, measure it, with value well above that registered in
the accounting bo oks.
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Evaluation
of intangible
assets
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