Intellectual Capital Management Accreditation in Portuguese SMEs

The failure of the international economic system has shown that the traditional financial systems do not provide enough information for managers or investors to make strategic and accurate decisions. The intellectual capital management is now seen as an important driver of contemporary organizations and is linked to its innovation capacity. So, the creation of a reliable and accessible method to recognize formally that a company has responsibilities for the management of their intellectual capital, can be very important to ensure a dynamic innovative with sustainability. The propose of this paper is to present the intellectual capital management accreditation methodology -ICMA, applied to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This methodology is based on empirical studies, conducted in Portuguese SMEs. According to ICMA methodology, the accreditation consists of a technical process validation and of acknowledgement of the global capacity of the entity to be accredited, converting it, into a member of a recognized group, in which the best practices are predominant; practices that direct the accredited entities on a constant search of alignment through excellence. ICMA methodology is based on Intellectual Capital Model - ICM and its audit parameters. Several researchers have investigated and documented the importance of managing intellectual capital, however, this approach gains importance because it presents an innovative methodology to ensure the management of intellectual capital in SMEs. In terms of practical implication, we can say that the creation of a recognized intellectual capital management accreditation methodology could be an important tool for ensuring the innovation capacity of SMEs and therefore a guarantee for sustainability to the various partners (customers, suppliers, shareholders, government and employees). The following sections of this paper are detailed description of this accreditation methodology, presenting it as recognition of excellence in the management of intellectual capital for SMEs.