Securing intellectual capital: an exploratory study in Australian universities
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-08-2019-0197 |
| Pages | 481-505 |
| Date | 31 March 2020 |
| Published date | 31 March 2020 |
| Author | Ivano Bongiovanni,Karen Renaud,George Cairns |
| Subject Matter | Accounting/accountancy,HR & organizational behaviour,Accounting & Finance,Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management |
Securing intellectual capital: an
exploratory study in
Australian universities
Ivano Bongiovanni
Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Karen Renaud
Division of Cyber Security, Abertay University, Dundee, UK and
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, and
George Cairns
QUT Business, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –To investigate the links between IC and the protection of data, information and knowledge in
universities, as organizations with unique knowledge-related foci and challenges.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors gathered insights from existing IC-related research
publications to delineate key foundational aspects of IC, identify and propose links to traditional information
security that impact the protection of IC. They conducted interviews with key stakeholders in Australian
universities in order to validate these links.
Findings –The authors’investigation revealed two kinds of embeddedness characterizing the organizational
fabric of universities: (1) vertical and (2) horizontal, with an emphasis on the connection between these and IC-
related knowledge protection within these institutions.
Research limitations/implications –There is a need to acknowledge the different roles played by actors
within the university and the relevance of information security to IC-related preservation.
Practical implications –Framing information security as an IC-related issue can help IT security managers
communicate the need for knowledge security with executives in higher education, and secure funding to
preserve and secure such IC-related knowledge, once its value is recognized.
Originality/value –This is one of the first studies to explore the connections between data and information
security and the three core components of IC’s knowledge security in the university context.
Keywords Intellectual capital, Data security, Information security, Knowledge security, Cyber security,
Higher education, University
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Intellectual capital (IC) is the stock of knowledge held by an organization (Dierickx and Cool,
1989) and is made up of three components: human capital (HC) (the product of individual
intellectual action, i.e. individual tacit knowledge), structural capital (SC) (organizational
processes, systems and routines that structure intellectual assets into group property) and
relational/customer capital (RC) (understanding of ex-firm intangibles) (Bontis, 1998).
Knowledge is at the core of IC (Stewart, 1997;Renaud et al., 2019) with organizations being
considered “repositories and coordinators of intellect”(Quinn, 1992, p. 241), this being
intrinsically linked to organizations’economic wealth and value creation (Paloma S
anchez
and Elena, 2006). There is a growing interest (in both research and practice) into the role of IC
in educational institutions (Bisogno et al., 2018) and particularly in higher education (HE)
(Paloma S
anchez et al., 2009), where IC management is crucially important, given the
knowledge-focused nature of their activities (Secundo et al., 2015).
Securing
intellectual
capital
481
Funding: This research was not funded by any specific grants in the public, commercial or not-for-profit
sectors.
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 19 August 2019
Revised 20 November 2019
Accepted 7 January 2020
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 21 No. 3, 2020
pp. 481-505
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-08-2019-0197
Reflecting this focus, a burgeoning stream of research has been dedicated to the study of
IC components in universities. Five distinct stages of IC research have emerged (Bisogno et al.,
2018;Secundo et al., 2018), but none of these is specifically linked to the preservation of IC, as
impacted by the cyber era. Yet, as we will argue, universities are exposed to significant
challenges in terms of securing their IC-related data, information and knowledge. Many
universities have long histories, and existing structural assets, whose contribution to the
value creation process is undeniably significant (Di Berardino and Corsi, 2018). Yet, it is
important also to consider how universities secure their data, information and knowledge,
given that their existing infrastructures are likely to pre-date cyberattacks. We need to
examine the ways in which universities traditionally transmit and disseminate knowledge
and consider how these practices are impacted by the security requirements of the cyber era.
In this paper, we reveal connections between IC-related knowledge security and traditional
information security, which is generally concerned with the preservation of data and
information. The study of knowledge security (Desouza and Vanapalli, 2005) is relatively
immature (Desouza, 2006;Renaud et al., 2019), and given the importance of IC within
universities, we believe greater insights into this topic would be valuable to the HE sector as
a whole.
Section 2 of this paper defines the IC concept and explores the related literature. We also
consider extant methods of data and information security, that is, the protection of the
confidentiality, integrity and availability of data/information (the so-called CIA properties)
(Von Solms And Van Niekerk, 2013) and links to knowledge security. We shall argue that the
very nature of HE presents significant challenges when it comes to securing both data and
information (Bongiovanni, 2019) and, inevitably, also organizational knowledge.
Intrinsically, cyber security and HE seem subject to diametrically opposing pressures: on
the one hand, there is the need to protect data, information and knowledge to preserve the
three components of IC. On the other hand, there is a strong drive to share knowledge, to
foster innovation and create international links and research collaborations across legislative
boundaries.
Section 3 outlines our research framework and explains how we carried out our research.
Section 4 presentsour findings, and Section5 discusses them and presents a conceptualization
of IC’s links to information security within knowledge-intensive institutions such as
universities. Specifically, we unpack IC’s three foundational components and explain how
these are influenced by extant data and information security practices in 10 Australian
universities and one major research center. Section 6 concludes the paper and suggests
directions for further research.
2. Review of the literature
2.1 Data, information and knowledge as constituents of intellectual capital
Researchers have conceptualized IC in different ways. Stewart (1997) aligns IC with
knowledge, information, data and intellectual property. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998)
describe IC as knowledge and knowing capability, whereas Dierickx and Cool (1989) refer to
IC as “stock of knowledge.”Asiaei and Jusoh (2015) mention IC’s link to know-how and
knowledge of manpower, databases, information technology, operating processes, customer
relationships, brand, trust and cultures.
Researchers and practitioners alike have also identified ways to operationalize IC, to
conceive it as a construct, with the purpose of measuring, assessing and preserving it. Bontis
(1998) argues that IC is composed of three subcategories of capital: human, structural and
customer/relational (HC, SC and RC). HC (human resources plus intellectual assets, Edvinsson
and Sullivan, 1996) refers to the individual tacit knowledge possessed by the members of an
organization, necessary for them to perform their functions and tasks. Structural (or
organizational) capital refers to the structural tacit knowledge ingrained in the organization:
JIC
21,3
482
To continue reading
Request your trial