Karl-Heinz Leitner

Intellectual capital reporting for universities: conceptual background and application for Austrian universities

A universitys most valuable resources are its researchers and students with their relations and organisational routines; their most important output is knowledge. These resources can be interpreted as intangible assets or intellectual capital, even though the term has so far not been used within the context of universities. Intellectual capital (IC) reporting seems to be a rich source for the development of management and reporting systems for universities. IC reports deliver information about the development and productive use of investments in intangible assets. The Austrian Ministry for Education, Science and Culture has developed an IC model that incorporates the knowledge-production process of universities. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Data envelopment analysis as method for evaluating intellectual capital

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a consulting and management tool that fulfils the requirements of quantitatively and comprehensively evaluating and benchmarking the efficiency of intellectual capital (IC).Design/methodology/approach – DEA is applied for a sample of input and output data of all technical and natural science departments of Austrian universities. Correlation and factor analyses are carried out to select appropriate variables of the sample. DEA estimates the production function of the units under evaluation in relation to peer units, which are identified as fully efficient.Findings – Results illustrate the existence of scale efficiencies of Austrian university departments and show a large heterogeneity within and among universities as well as between different fields of study with respect to their efficiency.Research limitations/implications – DEA is mainly appropriate for larger samples inside an organisation or among...

The effect of intellectual capital on product innovativeness in SMEs

This paper examines the relationship between intellectual capital and different product innovation strategies based on a longitudinal study of Austrian firms assuming that intellectual capital is an important complementary asset for innovation activities. The data was collected in 1995 and 2003 using the same questionnaire among a firm sample of 91 small and medium-sized firms in manufacturing industries. The study delivers evidence for a positive association between human capital and product innovativeness. Moreover, firms, which have strength in both human and structural capital have a higher likelihood to be highly innovative. In addition, the research reveals that intellectual capital discriminates more strongly between highly and less innovative firms while the traditional measure of R&D expenditure has a stronger explanatory power in differentiating between not innovative and less innovative firms.

An intellectual capital maturity model (ICMM) to improve strategic management in European universities

Purpose – The public sector is one of the least addressed areas of intellectual capital (IC) research. Universities are an interesting area of investigation because they are considered critical players in the knowledge-based society. The purpose of this paper is to develop a more general, flexible and comprehensive “IC Maturity Model” for Universities (ICMM), a framework for defining and implementing IC measurement and management approaches, as part of the whole strategic management of universities. Thus, the ICMM proposes a staged framework to initiate a step-by-step change within a university based upon its current level of IC management maturity. The different steps of maturity might be an answer to cope with the huge diversity of European universities, some of which have strong managerial orientation, while others follow collegial forms of governance. Design/methodology/approach – The research approach is based on what has been called the “third stage” of IC research (Dumay and Garanina, 2013), focused on the practices of IC approaches rather than on its theoretical conceptualisation. The ICMM has been developed under the “Quality Assurance in Higher Education through Habilitation and Auditing” project framework, initiated by the Executive Agency for Higher Education and Research Funding of Romania (EUFISCDI). Three Mutual Learning Workshops (MLWs) were organised as a mean to bring together 15 international experts and practitioners to share their views and experience on IC reporting and setting up task forces. Findings – An ICMM, which is a flexible model of implementing IC approaches within public universities, is developed. The ICMM provides a theoretical continuum along which the process of maturity can be developed incrementally from one level to the next, moving from IC data collection, awareness of IC, adjustment of IC specific indicators, measurement of IC, reporting of IC, interpretation and decision making, strategy and planning. Research limitations/implications – Future research needs to conduct empirical studies in universities to generalise the effectiveness of the ICMM model and guidelines for implementation. Practical implications – The ICMM provides a staged framework to initiate a step-by-step change within a university based upon its current level of IC management maturity and its IC value creation dynamics. It allows universities to follow different paths, not necessarily a linear sequence. Originality/value – Although several methods for IC measurement and management exist, most of these cannot accommodate the trade-off between the comparability aims and the efforts to capture the institution’s uniqueness when designing an IC model.

The Dynamics and Functions of Self-Organization in the Fuzzy Front End: Empirical Evidence from the Austrian Semiconductor Industry

This paper studies the functions, impacts and dynamics of self-organization in the fuzzy front end of innovation. Based on a case study approach, the new product development processes of five Austrian semiconductor companies are analysed. We adopt a complexity science perspective which stresses that self-organization and emergence are key elements of the new product development process. We found that self-organization mechanisms occur in two ways. First, self-organizational activities support formal and top-down managed new product development processes. In this way, they contribute to the acceleration and adaptation of the new product development process and are also a way to overcome bureaucratic structures. Second, we found evidence for the existence of purely emergent bottom-up processes in many cases. In this context, employees intrinsically and without any explicit order or strategy took initiatives to innovate. Such activities run in parallel to or precede formal new product development processes and employees deliberately bypass and even ignore formal processes such as financial incentive systems, suggestion schemes and patenting rules in order to promote their ideas. These activities are often secret until they are mature enough to be presented to the management, when they are then, if evaluated positively, incorporated as official projects in the new product development process.

Transition Pathways Towards User-Centric Innovation

Although various user-centric innovation concepts have proved successful in niche markets and specific industries, there is yet little understanding how these models may become more widely diffused in manufacturing industries. We apply an evolutionary economics perspective to explore possible transition pathways towards user-centric innovation paradigms. In order to understand not only the past but also possible future transition trajectories, we complement the co-evolution analysis with prospective elements such as scenario building and roadmapping. Using this combined approach, we identify possible future working configurations of user-centric innovation models and specify a number of diverse elements relevant on different levels of the transition arena. We argue that these insights can be used to define and set-up dedicated learning spaces for user-centric innovation. It is suggested that similar approaches may be useful for companies and policy actors to guide governance of change towards user-centric innovation models.

An SNA‐based approach for management control of intellectual capital

Purpose – Within the context of intellectual capital (IC) reporting, social network analysis (SNA) is applied to identify driving factors, which allows it to control the development of intellectual capital. Hence, the aim of the paper is to address an important weakness of established methods for IC management, i.e. their inability to cope with interdependencies between different elements.Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the method of SNA and its ability to identify IC value drivers. Thereby, the relationships between different key success factors and organisational results are represented as a graph and their interactions are analysed by specific SNA indicators with the aim of identifying appropriate IC control factors. The experience with the proposed new method gained within a vocational education and training centre in Austria during the implementation of an intellectual capital report is presented to illustrate the new method.Findings – The newly introduced approach delivers new kind...

New forms of innovation: critical issues for future pathways

Purpose Although new forms of innovation such as open innovation, user innovation or crowdsourcing have been intensively discussed in the past decade, there is little systematic exploration of their wider positive and negative effects on economy, society and environment. Based on the recent debate in the literature and findings from a European foresight project, this paper aims to discuss the critical aspects of new forms of innovation such as increased participation, the use of information technologies and the increased pace of innovation and their challenges for innovation policy. Design/methodology/approach Based on a collection of international practice examples from industry and society, innovation visions have been generated and assessed by different experts across whole Europe. Findings A generic trend identified can be best described as open, distributed and networked innovation process. Although many new innovation models accelerate the innovation process, there are also some counter trends which in some fields may slow down the innovation process. In addition, the increased use of web-based tools, algorithms and information technologies raises new questions concerning the protection of intellectual property and data security. This reveals new questions for policymaking, which have not gained much attention on the European level so far. Originality/value Although there is an established discourse around potentially negative impacts of the outcomes of the innovation processes notably in the field of technology assessment, innovation capacity is usually seen as a desirable characteristic of innovation systems. In this paper, the possible negative aspects of new innovation models, an issue hardly addressed in the innovation literature so far, are discussed.

Wissensbilanzierung für den Forschungsbereich: Erfahrungen der Austrian Research Centers

Forschungsorganisationen sind Wissensproduzenten per se, deren wichtigste Ressource ihr intellektuelles Kapital darstellt. Was liegt naher, als das Instrument der Wissensbilanz, das eine Methode zur umfassenden Erfassung, Bewertung und Management des intellektuellen Kapitals1 ist, fur Forschungsorganisationen einzusetzen? Erste Erfahrungen von industriellen Unternehmen, die Wissensbilanzen erfolgreich eingefuhrt hatten, eine intensive Diskussion uber Auswirkungen der wissensbasierten Wirtschaft und die Forderung nach erhohter Transparenz in Bezug auf die eingesetzten Forschungsmittel, haben Impulse geliefert, das Instrument der Wissensbilanz in Forschungsorganisationen einzufuhren. Gleichwohl gibt es gerade im Forschungsbereich Bedenken, dass eine Messung von Forschungs-, Entwicklungsund Innovationsprozessen die notigen kreativen Freiraume einschrankt und Anreize liefert, die nur zu kurzfristiger Performanceoptimierung fuhren. Dennoch: erst die systematische Erfassung von Informationen uber die Entwicklung des intellektuellen Kapitals – unter besonderer Berucksichtigung von Forschungs-, Entwicklungs-, und Innovationsprozessen – erlaubt es, Zielkonflikte sichtbar zu machen, Potenziale zu realisieren und strategische Entscheidungen zu fundieren. Eine Forschungsorganisation ist mehr als seine talentierten Forscher oder die Aggregation von Forschungsprojekten. Es geht darum, koharente Ziele und Strategien zu formulieren, Anreize fur die Mitarbeiterentwicklung zu setzen, Beziehungen auszubauen, Kundenwunsche zu optimieren und Forschungsprogramme zu strukturieren, allesamt Elemente, die unterschiedliche Formen des intellektuellen Kapitals betreffen. Die offentliche Hand als Eigentumer und andere Stakeholder von Forschungsorganisationen fordern seit einigen Jahren uberdies zunehmend Informationen uber die Effizienz der eingesetzten Mittel und die Effektivitat der Zielerreichung. Wenngleich Forschungsorganisationen nicht auf Kapitalmarkten um Finanzmittel konkurrieren, so haben diese dennoch zunehmend im Wettbewerb um Forschungsmittel zu bestehen. Folglich sind Informationen uber das Potenzial der investierten

Pathways for the co-evolution of new product development and strategy formation processes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the intermingling of new product development and strategy making which are interpreted as co-evolutionary processes where self-organisation and emergence are significant phenomena. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an empirical study of 50 major Austrian innovations in various manufacturing industries developed by small and large firms in the 1980s and 1990s. The theoretical arguments for studying the innovation and strategy process are based on the findings of the complexity science. Findings – The paper shows that emerging opportunities, self-organisation and strategic intentions are equally important for the development of new major product innovations as deliberate search processes and rational decision making. The author identifies three strategy paths concerning the innovation and strategy process which are described as “strategically managed innovations”, “strategically enabled self-organized innovations” and “purely self-organised...