The Structural Model of Intellectual Capital in Higher Education Institutions

Higher education system is one of the most important and complicated products of human achievements. In addition, universities are social systems which have been known as the center of knowledge and information as well as thinking bases for leading societies. In today's complex, competitive world, intellectual capital is considered as a competitive advantage for organizations and an indication of a part of the organization's economic function. The purpose of the present study was to provide a structural model of intellectual capital in higher education institutions based on managers' creative problem-solving and organizational culture. The population of the research included all employees of Islamic Azad University (IAU). 332 managers and three employees under their supervision (totally 996 employees) were selected using stratified and cluster random sampling method. The research instruments were three questionnaires which were administered in 86 IAU branches and education centers: Bontis's (1997) Intellectual Capital Questionnaire which consisted of 52 items with three underlying constructs of human capital, customer capital, and structural capital and Cronbach Alpha of 0.95; Managers' Creative Problem-Solving Questionnaire (Whetten & Cameron, 2006) which was comprised of 22 items with dimensions of logical problem solving, creative problem solving, developing innovation and Cronbach Alpha 0.82; and a researcher-made questionnaire for organizational culture which was constructed based on the Robbin's (1996) theory with 28 items and underlying factors of individual initiative, risk tolerance, direction, integration, conflict tolerance, management contact, control, and reward system (alpha = 0.92). The results of path analysis using LISREL software indicated that dimensions of creative problem-solving and organizational culture had a direct effect on intellectual capital with the indices of 0.03 for the former variable and 0.80 for the latter one. The model also showed that the factor of integrity in organizational culture had the highest direct effect on the intellectual capital.