Measurement of Intellectual Capital for Innovation

The increasingly competitive pressure on companies forces them to constantly improve their processes and products offered to the market. Therefore, innovation becomes a requirement for survival and business growth. The ability of firms to innovate depends not only on their exploitation of internal resources but it is also increasingly influenced by their ability to use knowledge from other organisations in their environment. For the latter, almost 100 Technology and Research Institutes (TRIs) are considered specific players in the science, technology and social system and have been selected as a case study. These Institutes contribute to the overall social benefit and to improving business competitiveness by providing research and development (R&D) and innovation. For this reason their human resources are considered a strategic resource for the promotion and implementation of R&D and innovation, with SMEs as their principal clients of innovation related services. A specific applied method for measuring their intellectual capital has been developed, which is illustrated in a case study. The methodological measurement approach and the different key actions are described in this paper in order to foment the exploitation of intellectual capital of TRIs in the management of product innovation.