Non tangible oganisational resources that can be classified into three main components: human resources; structural resources; and relational resources: Human resources refer to internal stakeholders, such as senior managers and employees, and to their attributes, that is knowledge, abilities, skills, experiences and innovativeness. These are becoming critical resources for oganisations, particularly because they contribute to the ability to respond and adapt to a changing environment. Structural resources consist of all those things that remain in the oganisation when the employees have left the building and are in some way owned or controlled by the oganisation. Structural resources include ‘intellectual property’ and ‘infrastructural resources’. Intellectual property is owned by the company and protected by law and includes elements such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. Infrastructural resources consist of oganisational characteristics such as methods and procedures and the oganisational context provided to individuals to achieve strategic objectives. Therefore, structural resources include, but are not limited to, culture, processes, routines, and information and networking systems.Relational resources include the oganisation’s brand and image in the marketplace, as well as its relationships with external stakeholders (such as government, customers, partners and retailers, suppliers, residents, etc.). Some of these resources are not owned by the oganisation, but are relationships that are significant and require management. This tripartite classification of knowledge resources is known as intellectual capital and is a framing device for understanding KR and related elements. As a result, the concepts of knowledge resources and intellectual capital embrace all kinds of non tangible oganisational resources, either formally owned or used, or informally deployed and mobilized.
Published in Chapter:
Critical Analysis of International Guidelines for the Management of Knowledge Resources
Federica Ricceri (University of Padova, Italy) and James Guthrie (University of Sydney, Australia)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-176-6.ch023
Abstract
The shift towards a knowledge based economy is at the core of the debate of contemporary management and accounting literature and organisations are challenged by the need to manage their knowledge resources. Several national and international institutions have produced authoritative “guidelines” to facilitate the management and reporting of KR. Many of these guidelines are the result of co-operation between researchers, companies, industry organisations and consultants and have, therefore, been informed by practice. However, to date, there has been no serious critique of these guidelines. The main objective of this chapter is to provide an in-depth analysis of six contemporary guidelines. By reviewing these guidelines, this chapter explores how each of these addresses the MKR and therefore facilitates the management and reporting of KR. Therefore, this chapter will establish some of the key issues involved in understanding MKR. It will also provide an overview of how these issues are addressed or otherwise in the six guidelines. Two key messages of this chapter are the followings: first, MKR and its elements are embedded in various ways into the international guidelines examined; second, that a key policy issue is international harmonisation.