Intellectual Capital: Contributions to a Brief Literature Review

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to know what a selected set of 22 authors of literature says about the intellectual capital, says about it, in a neat way. This is part of the problem, related to this same topic, according to the approach, which constitutes the main problem, that is, the definition-measurement-value triad. Thus, it is a matter of knowing the authors, which papers they published, which countries they belong to and, above all, what they say in their content. In the end, knowledge becomes more synthetic and scientific knowledge more readable and concentrated on paper, easily accessible. The methods used are eminently quantitative, once based on primary and other secondary data.

The main conclusion that can be drawn is that the definition-measurement-value triad, sequentially interrelated, regarding to the intellectual capital, in the selected literature, although it has merit, per se, makes disparate and dispersed contributions, not encompassing the 3 elements and, therefore, not allowing, in a single way, to present a concrete value, and replicable to a set of different situations in order to be able to know the different assumed and compare them.

Key words: intellectual capital, definition, measurement, value

JEL codes: J24, J41, M54