Bridging the gap between intellectual capital models: an ancestry/chronology approach

Since the first coining of the term ‘intellectual capital’ (IC) in Stewart’s “Brainpower” article of 1991, IC has gained popularity and interest amongst researchers from different disciplines as a source of attaining and maintaining competitive advantages. The result of these disciplines (e.g. human resources, accounting, marketing and finance) feeding into the IC literature has been a dramatic increase in the number of IC models. The diversity of the models has given rise to different approaches for realising the value of IC, provided different taxonomies for classifying IC, and introduced different practices for managing, measuring and reporting IC. This variety has made it a challenge for organisations to select the appropriate model to systematically manage, measure and report their organisational knowledge. This paper visualises the roots of IC models in the literature by examining the foundations and principles on which they are based. Such a visualisation affords the opportunity to establish common bases for IC modelling in order to reduce the diversity between IC models and increase their practical applicability. These bases are: the tendency towards enhancing the taxonomy of IC, and the tendency towards establishing the practices of managing, measuring and reporting IC. The main contribution of this paper is three ancestry/chronology diagrams that visualise fifty-four IC models and the rationale behind their development, which in turn brings greater coherence to the literature on IC modelling and conceptualisation.