Mind mapping the topic of intellectual capital (IC)
Joseph Kim-keung Ho
Independent Trainer
Hong Kong, China
Abstract: The topic of intellectual capital (IC) is a main one in Strategic
Management. This article makes use of the mind mapping-based literature review
(MMBLR) approach to render an image on the knowledge structure of intellectual
capital. The finding of the review exercise is that its knowledge structure
comprises four main themes, i.e., (a) Descriptions of basic concepts and
information (b) Major underlying theories and thinking, (c) Main research
topics and issues, and (d) Major trends and issues related to practices. There is also a set of key concepts identified from
the intellectual capital literature review. The article offers some academic and pedagogical values on the topics of
intellectual capital, literature review and the mind mapping-based literature
review (MMBLR) approach.
Key words: Intellectual
capital, literature review, mind
map, the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach
Introduction
Intellectual capital (IC) is a main topic in Strategic Management.
It is of academic and pedagogical interest to the writer who has been a
lecturer on Strategic Management for some tertiary education centres in Hong
Kong. In this article, the writer presents his literature review findings on intellectual
capital using the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach. This
approach was proposed by this writer in 2016 and has been employed to review
the literature on a number of topics, such as supply chain management, strategic
management accounting and customer relationship management (Ho, 2016). The
MMBLR approach itself is not particularly novel since mind mapping has been
employed in literature review since its inception. The overall aims of this
exercise are to:
1. Render an image of the knowledge structure of
intellectual capital via the application of the MMBLR approach;
2. Illustrate how the MMBLR approach can be
applied in literature review on an academic topic, such as intellectual capital.
The findings from this literature review
exercise offer academic and pedagogical values to those who are interested in
the topics of intellectual capital, literature review and the MMBLR approach.
Other than that, this exercise facilitates this writer’s intellectual learning
on these three topics. The next section makes a brief introduction on the MMBLR
approach. After that, an account of how it is applied to study intellectual
capital is presented.
On the mind
mapping-based literature review approach
The mind mapping-based literature review
(MMBLR) approach was developed by this writer in 2016 (Ho, 2016). It makes use
of mind mapping as a complementary literature review exercise (see the Literature on mind mapping Facebook page
and the Literature on literature review
Facebook page). The approach is made up of two steps. Step 1 is a thematic
analysis on the literature of the topic chosen for study. Step 2 makes use of
the findings from step 1 to produce a complementary mind map. The MMBLR
approach is a relatively straightforward and brief exercise. The approach is
not particularly original since the idea of using mind maps in literature
review has been well recognized in the mind mapping literature. It is also an
interpretive exercise in the sense that different reviewers with different
research interest and intellectual background inevitably will select different
ideas, facts and findings in their thematic analysis (i.e., step 1 of the MMBLR
approach). To perform the approach, the reviewer needs to perform a literature
search beforehand. Apparently, what a reviewer gathers from a literature search
depends on what library facility, including e-library, is available to the
reviewer. The next section presents the findings from the MMBLR approach step
1; afterward, a companion mind map is provided based on the MMBLR approach step
1 findings.
Mind
mapping-based literature review on intellectual capital (IC): step 1 findings
Step 1 of the MMBLR approach is a thematic
analysis on the literature of the topic under investigation (Ho, 2016). In our
case, this is the intellectual capital topic. The writer gathers some academic
articles from some universities’ e-libraries as well as via the Google Scholar.
With the academic articles collected, the writer conducted a literature review
on them to assemble a set of ideas, viewpoints, concepts and findings (called
points here). The points from the intellectual capital literature are then
grouped into four themes here. The key words in the quotations are bolded in
order to highlight the key concepts involved.
Theme 1: Descriptions of basic concepts and
information
Point 1.1.
"Stewart ... defines
intellectual capital as "the
intellectual material - knowledge, information, intellectual property,
experience - that can be put to use to create wealth". ..... Generally,
the literature has identified three sub-phenomena that constitute the concept
of intellectual capital: human capital, relational capital and organizational
capital" (de Pablos, 2002);
Point 1.2.
"IC is a multi-disciplinary concept and the
understanding of it varies across different business-related disciplines. The
concept was developed to deal with specific sets of issues and problems.
According to Chatzkel (2002), all definitions are valid and it is up to the
user to select the definition that works best to meet any particular sets of
needs" (Huang, Luther and Tayles, 2007);
Point 1.3.
"The economist Galbraith [1969] was the first to propose the intellectual capital concept, and
described intellectual capital as behavior that requires the exercise of the
brain. Intellectual capital was not understood as static intellect, but rather
as demanding dynamic intellect-creating activities" (Huang and Wu, 2010);
Point 1.4.
"...we define IC as
the combination of knowledge-bearing
intangible resources that the firm has at its disposal and whose effective
management can provide the firm with a sustainable competitive advantage. The
above definition of IC has several implications. First, intellectual capital
consists of intangible resources that contain knowledge that can be used by the
firm to accomplish its goals. Second, it is the combination of intangible
resources instead of their absolute quantity that creates value for the firm.
This combination determines the quality of the firm’s IC as discussed in
Chaminade and Roberts .... Third, the firm doesn’t own or control all these
resources" (Cohen and Kaimenakis, 2007);
Point 1.5.
"....human capital
represent the individual knowledge stock
of an organization as represented by its employees.... It is the accumulated value of investments in employee training, competence and the
future" (de Pablos, 2002);
Point 1.6.
"Organizational
capital is defined as the knowledge that stays within the company at the
end of the working day. According to Bontis et al...., it "includes all
the non-human storehouses of knowledge in organizations, which include the
databases, organizational charts, process manuals, strategies, routines and
anything whose value to the company is higher than its material
value".." (de Pablos, 2002);
Point 1.7.
"Relational capital
represents the relationships within internal and external stakeholders.... It
is the knowledge embedded in
organizational relationships with customers, suppliers, stakeholders, strategic
alliance partners, etc." (de Pablos, 2002);
Theme 2: Major underlying theories and
thinking
Point 2.1.
"At the macroeconomic
level OECD research has identified a number of business intangibles such as
R&D, education and training of work force that correlate positively with
GDP or productivity growth" (Grasenick and Low, 2004);
Point 2.2.
"The concept of social
capital was originally used in community studies to describe relational
resources embedded in personal ties in the community ... The concept has since
been applied to a wide range of intra- and inter-organizational studies .....
Researchers have positioned social capital as a key factor in understanding
value creation ..... An organization’s social capital enhances the quality of
group work and richness of information exchange among team members" (Huang
and Wu, 2010);
Point 2.3.
"....if human capital
resembles a root, absorbing all nutrition, then organizational capital is like
a trunk, providing nutrient transit, and social capital is like the leaves,
conveying environmental elements. These elements interact to create more than
the sum of their parts" (Huang and Wu, 2010);
Point 2.4.
"...intermediate customers
(such as travel agents and tour operators) are categorized as non-customers
(and, thus, constitute so-called non-endcustomer-relationship capital), since
they are not the final customers of the hotel product" (Rudež
and Mihalič, 2007);
Point 2.5.
"...the organizational
capital in an SME is primarily
developed and maintained by the means of its employees. More specifically, they
report the lack of explicit knowledge repositories since the manager/owner
plays this part, while at the same time knowledge is created, shared,
transferred and applied through the
organization’s members without the intervention of automated mechanisms
usually found in larger firms" (Cohen and Kaimenakis, 2007);
Point 2.6.
"According to Chen and Lin ... “the value-added created by human
capital has prevailed over that created by tangible assets, such as
machines” ..... Drucker ... has argued that IC is the only meaningful resource,
and not just another resource alongside with the traditional production
factors. Others argue that the relative importance of tangible assets has
decreased as the importance of intangible, knowledge-based assets has increased
and hence take precedence over traditional physical resources in the pursuit of
competitive advantage" (Steenkamp and Kashyap, 2010);
Point 2.7.
"Companies own both tangible assets such as property,
plants, equipment and physical technologies and intangible assets which are needed to run the business. Tangible assets are easily imitable and
substitutable and can be easily purchased and sold in the open market" (Kehelwalathenna,
2016);
Point 2.8.
"Gu and Lev .... name five different subgroups of intangibles, namely research and development,
advertising, capital expenditure, information systems, and technology
acquisition. According to these authors, the definition of an intangible asset
as “a claim to future benefits that does not have a physical or financial (a stock
or a bond) embodiment”....." (Kaufmann and Schneider, 2004);
Point 2.9.
"Human capital is
of little value to the firm in isolation. Bearing in mind its volatile nature
(employees can suddenly leave the organization), it is essential that firms
develop competencies that sustain its existence beyond certain individuals.
These competencies constitute the concept of organizational capital which
assists employees to achieve high intellectual performance and consequently
enhance the firm’s performance" (Cohen and Kaimenakis, 2007);
Point 2.10.
"IC can give rise to agency
problems as “insiders” of firms can take advantage of such information to
earn excess profits ..... Disclosure of IC in annual reports helps to make
capital markets more efficient by reducing information asymmetry between
“insiders” and investors. Additionally, IC disclosure helps the capital market
to provide a more accurate market capitalization of firms" (Abeysekera,
2008);
Point 2.11.
"IC is viewed in this paper as a “human construction” ...; hence, it cannot be adequately understood
independently of actors, cultures and history. It follows that IC does not
first and foremost gain its legitimacy from any capacity to explain reality;
nor is it solely the means for some neutral representation or measurement of
reality. IC gains its legitimacy from its capacity to change social reality, to
intervene in social reality, to allow “action to be performed at a distance”
..., and/or to assist actors in transforming their own realities" (Jørgensen,
2006);
Point 2.12.
"In the post-capitalist
society, it is safe to assume that anyone with any knowledge will have to
acquire new knowledge every four to five years, or else become obsolete"
(Huang and Wu, 2010);
Point 2.13.
"Non-monetary-oriented
concepts that measure and manage intangibles usually concentrate on
intangible competencies, based on a firm’s strategy. Indicators are derived
from identified key success factors. The most well-known representatives are
the balanced scorecard ..., the intangible asset monitor ...., the intellectual
capital approach .... and the IC-index ...., the performance prism ....,
MERITUM guidelines ...., Danish guidelines ...." (Grasenick and Low,
2004);
Point 2.14.
"Relational capital
represents the potential an organization has due to extraneous intangible
assets. These intangibles comprise the knowledge embedded in customers,
suppliers, the government, or related industry associations .... The
relationships a firm establishes with its customers constitute the most
important part of relational capital known as “customer capital”. This includes
customer contracts, relationships, loyalty, satisfaction, market share, image,
reputation, brands, distribution networks, and channels" (Cohen and
Kaimenakis, 2007);
Point 2.15.
"Resource based
theorists see firms as heterogeneous entities characterized by their unique
resource base .... and this resource base consists increasingly of IC ....This
means that the IC of a firm should be one of the central considerations in
formulating strategy and one of the primary constants upon which a firm can
establish its identity and frame its strategy, as well as one of the primary
sources of the firm’s profitability" (Marr, Gray and Neely, 2003);
Point 2.16.
"Roos et al..... state that the intellectual agility of employees’ acts in changing their practices
lead to innovative solutions to problems in the organization" (Kehelwalathenna,
2016);
Point 2.17.
"The adjective “intangible”
usually accompanies different concepts such as assets, investments, and
resources. There is not a unique nor unanimously accepted definition or
classification of intangibles. One reason for this is that the boundaries,
constituents and definitions of intangibles vary according to the perspectives
of the different interest groups considering them, for example whether
evaluating the potential impact of accounting concepts on a firm or national
level, or analysing them from a managerial point of view in order to extract
value from key business investments and assets" (Grasenick and Low, 2004);
Point 2.18.
"The components of organizational
capital include infrastructure, information systems, routines, procedures,
and organizational culture for retaining, packaging, and moving knowledge ....
The productivity of the knowledge worker will almost always require that the
work itself be restructured and made part of a system" (Huang and Wu,
2010);
Point 2.19.
"The productive
contributions of scientists also include their network contacts and
resources, which are emphasized by the social network perspective. A firm’s
scientists can embed the firm in scientific networks or “invisible colleges”
.... These invisible colleges are an informal network of researchers
established around a common problem or research program" (Luo, Koput and Powell, 2009);
Point 2.20.
"The recent literature, in general, delineates IC along three dimensions: (1) “internal (structural)
capital”; (2) “external (relational/customer) capital”; and (3) “human capital”
.... Internal capital includes intellectual properties, processes,
organisational culture, etc. whereas external capital represents the
relationship with various stakeholders ..... External capital is the knowledge
embedded in organisational relationships with customers, suppliers, investors,
and strategic alliance partners" (Abeysekera, 2008);
Point 2.21.
"Through the systematic literature review we were able to
identify five main reasons [for measuring
IC]. These were: (1) to help organizations formulate their strategy; (2)
assess strategy execution; (3) assist in diversification and expansion
decisions; (4) use these as a basis for compensation; and finally (5) to
communicate measures to external stakeholders" (Marr, Gray and Neely,
2003);
Point 2.22.
"Where firms lack the critical
resources (intangible and tangible), they often seek to access these from
other organizations through a variety of inter-organizational links ... These
include strategic alliances, joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. Lev
.... suggests that network economies and synergies associated with R&D and
other intangibles are fundamental issues in corporate acquisitions,
diversification and alliances. The takeover prices paid for targets in many of
these deals, especially those in knowledge intensive industries, often include
very large payments for goodwill and IC" (Marr, Gray and Neely, 2003);
Point 2.23.
"Knowledge assets
are a type of intangible asset, which causes three unit qualities that physical
assets lack. First, a physical asset is a scare because it can only be deployed
in one place at a time (rival assets), knowledge assets can be deployed
simultaneously in multiple locations and for multiple projects. ... A second
significant difference between tangible and intangible assets, while physical
assets experience diminishing returns at some point, knowledge assets can
experience increasing returns. This increase is due to the cumulative nature of
knowledge. Finally, there are also network effects associated with knowledge
assets. Knowledge assets have an inherent feedback mechanism that leads to the
self-propagating virtuous circle" (Seetharaman, Low and Saravanan, 2004);
Point 2.24.
"A defining characteristic of firms with a high proportion of
intangible assets, also called “knowledge
firms”, is their reliance on knowledge workers and the management of
knowledge assets to add value in their products and relationships"
(Seetharaman, Low and Saravanan, 2004);
Point 2.25.
"Companies that use their knowledge as a source of
competitive advantage are called knowledge
companies. Knowledge companies derive their profits from the
commercialization of the knowledge created by their human resource - their
employees" (Edvinsson and Sullivan, 1996);
Point 2.26.
"End-customer-relationship capital refers to the relations with
end-customers only and non-end-customer-relationship capital is divided into
two sub-categories: relationships with commercial partners in the private
sector, and relationships with other partners such as the government,
associations and nongovernmental organisations" (Rudež
and Mihalič, 2007);
Point 2.27.
"IC is now part of neo-liberal
capitalist discourse and appears to be mainly concerned with the control,
management and exploitation of knowledge, learning processes, and human
capital/employees" (Jørgensen, 2006);
Point 2.28.
"Knowledge companies...
leverage newly defined kinds of capital: intellectual and structural. Both
of these new kinds of assets have as
their basis the human resource, the most fundamental element to the firm's
revenue-generating capability" (Edvinsson and Sullivan, 1996);
Point 2.29.
"Several characteristics define it [the knowledge economy]: * it is focused on
intangible rather than tangible resources; * it has a hypercompetitive business environment; *
it is digital; * it is virtual; and * it
is networked" (de Pablos, 2002);
Point 2.30.
"The market value of
a firm consists of its financial capital and "something else".
The first term is the firm's book value and is formed by organizational financial and physical
assets. The "something else" term represents the firm's intellectual
capital, defined as resources created from internal learning and development of
valuable relationships" (de Pablos, 2002);
Point 2.31.
"This framework [by Brooking] has the following categories of IC: . market
assets (consisting of service or product brands, backlog, customer loyalty,
etc.); . intellectual property assets (patents, know-how, trade secrets,
etc.); . human-centered assets (education, work-related knowledge,
vocational qualifications, etc.); and . infrastructure assets (management
philosophy, corporate culture, networking systems, etc.)...."
(Addolmohammadi, 2005);
Point 2.32.
"Intangibles are
characterized by a set of attributes. They tend to lack the classical
bottleneck characteristics, they reach the expected economies of scale quickly,
and often they show network effects ..... Additionally, they may be
characterized by various occurrences within the group of intangibles, missing
physical and/or financial/monetary attitudes, partial accountability, claims
for future incomes, limited tradability, and a partially missing market" (Kaufmann
and Schneider, 2004);
Theme 3: Main research topics and issues
Point 3.1.
"Bukh et al. .... state that no unique
definition for intellectual capital exists; they claim, “it is a fragile
construct, which has to be continuously supported and held together by a whole
array of interrelated elements”..." (Kaufmann and Schneider, 2004);
Point 3.2.
"...little has been done in exploring IC in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)
since they differ significantly from the large firms that are usually surveyed
on the basis of the constrained resources employed ...and management
capabilities .... According to Greiner ..., firms of relatively small size
follow a different model of organizational practices when compared to large
corporations. That means that the importance attributed to each IC sub-domain
may be different, and subsequently, the
impact of one sub-domain to the other is expected to differ compared to large
firm findings" (Cohen and Kaimenakis, 2007);
Point 3.3.
"...the degree to which IC is used in various fields is evident, as most accounting,
economics and strategic management literature recognizes IC with greater
interest in recent times" (Kehelwalathenna, 2016);
Point 3.4.
"In the extant literature, different approaches about how
IC may be classified and measured are available .... However, despite the
number of activities from both academics and practitioners, one important
hurdle was detected in the past: the lack
of a common language ..... One explanation for this situation is certainly
the divergent viewpoints of different interest groups or disciplines, or
between considerations of strategy and measurement. The former is concerned
with optimizing the management of knowledge resources in the company to improve
performance, whereas the latter focusses on establishing standards for
organizational accounting to provide stakeholders with a more comprehensive and
comprehensible picture of IC expressed in terms of traditional monetary
data" (Ferenhof, Durst, Bialecki and Selig, 2015);
Point 3.5.
"Pioneering IC models
originated mainly from Scandinavia and North America. While the IC concept has
“travelled” to Australia and some Asian countries, its taxonomy, which was initially
developed in “the West”, may not be universally appropriate" (Huang,
Luther and Tayles, 2007);
Point 3.6.
"Research on IC applied to SME managements’ perceptions as to which intangible assets are most
important and contribute to their businesses’ success in particular is
scarce" (Steenkamp and Kashyap, 2010);
Point 3.7.
"The extant IC literature contains a plethora of studies
which investigate the impact of IC on
firm performance. However, no attempt has been made to examine whether this
impact is sustainable during a financially unstable situation in the
economy" (Kehelwalathenna, 2016);
Point 3.8.
"There is a growing number of companies that have started to
report their intangible assets or indicators for such in their annual reports .... The companies may
however be hesitant to disclose important figures for fear of giving away their
competitive advantage but a lack of
external disclosure standards and the lack of clarity in intellectual
capital (IC) constructs for disclosure can also hinder measurement and
reporting. There is also the question of the perceived importance of different
intangible resources across companies or industries, which should call for more
detailed studies of what is disclosed of IC and for what reasons"
(Claessen, 2005);
Point 3.9.
"There seems to be no clear evolutionary path of intangible asset management as a discipline.
Measurement instruments have been developed during the last decade with the
purpose of reporting the contribution of human competencies, knowledge and
skills to a firm’s value and to foster their further expansion. Correlations between intangibles and
other drivers of value show clear empirical evidence of their importance;
it has been shown, however, that their interaction cannot be explained easily
within a consistent theoretical framework" (Grasenick and Low, 2004);
Point 3.10.
"While there is no direct evidence in the literature regarding
the effects of disclosure of IC components on market capitalization, studies in other contexts provide evidence
of a significant effect of voluntary disclosure on trading volume and market
capitalization" (Addolmohammadi, 2005);
Point 3.11.
"Research into the general topic of IC began in the 1990s and
was mainly concerned with raising awareness about the existence and value of
intangible assets within organizations and about developing classification models for IC ....
Following this initial work, the strategy and economics field began to carry
out research into intellectual assets and formulated the concept of the
knowledge-based organization" (Marr, Gray and Neely, 2003);
Point 3.12.
"The most common way of viewing value creation during the past two centuries has been influenced by
the industrial logic, in which value is added in sequential process stages
based on the notion that each part can be optimized individually and thereby
contribute to the overall organizational value creation ..... In the past two
decades this value creation framework has been challenged by non-linear models of interpreting the
creation and management of values in organizations ..... These new perspectives
clearly acknowledge different actors (stakeholders) as co-producers/creators of
organizational value and they tend to stress the importance of co-invention,
combinations and constant connectivity among the various actors in
question" (Skoog, 2003);
Theme 4: Major trends and issues related
to practices
Point 4.1.
"According to the OECD (2008), other benefits which IC contributes to firms include among others
improving customer acquisition and retention, enhancing employee motivation,
recruitment, and retention, increasing firms’ competitiveness, enhancing
efficiency of resource allocation and better project management"
(Steenkamp and Kashyap, 2010);
Point 4.2.
"Both human
capital and social capital can
signal a firm’s quality in the biotechnology industry. Higgins and Gulati ... argue that young
firms send messages of their legitimacy to their investors through the prior
employment affiliation and role experience of their top management teams. Top
management teams’ affiliation with prominent downstream organizations (such as
pharmaceutical companies) and prior experience as a chief scientific officer
favorably affect investment" (Luo,
Koput and Powell, 2009);
Point 4.3.
"Experience from the pioneers of reporting on IC ... indicate that information on IC has little
value for users unless it is linked to the strategy
of the firm. Any performance measurement system should be used to assess
and challenge the assumptions underpinning the current strategic
direction" (Marr, Gray and Neely, 2003);
Point 4.4.
"In the New Zealand (NZ) accounting
standard, an intangible asset is
defined as: “An identifiable non-monetary asset without physical substance”
(New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, n.d.). However, in the
intellectual capital (IC) literature, intangible assets are defined as: “claims
to future benefits that do not have physical or financial embodiments” and
“non-physical sources of value generated by innovation, unique organizational
designs, brands, and human resources” .... These definitions indicate that
“intangibles” has a broader meaning in the IC literature than in prevailing
accounting standards" (Steenkamp and Kashyap, 2010);
Point 4.5.
"The increasing importance of the knowledge economy has aroused a considerable discussion among
scholars concerning the definition, role, management and disclosure of the Intellectual capital (IC) ...... The
importance initially given to identifying and disclosing IC in the private
sector ..... has led to an osmosis in the non-profit and public sectors" (Rossi,
Citro and Bisogno, 2016);
Point 4.6.
"The International
Accounting Standards – IAS 38 has acknowledged the difficulty in
quantitatively verifying IC processes for financial reporting purposes (IAS
38), which is the accounting standard of intangible assets, as a reason for not
classifying IC as assets in financial reports. As Catasus ... points out, the IAS 38 revisited traditional accounting
classification-related concepts such as identifiability, control and future
economic benefit. However, the effect of the use of traditional accounting
standards to produce a classification model whose financial statements provide
limited information about the affairs of firms, and the prudent approach
adopted by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has increased the
“unexplained” gap between the fair
price and the reported value (net book value) of the firm" (Abeysekera,
2008);
Point 4.7.
"Under the generally
accepted accounting principle (GAAP), financial statements lack proper
reporting, measurement and disclosure of items in newly emerging fields such as
human capital ..... For example, conservatism states that when exposure to
uncertainty and risk is significant, accounting measurement and disclosure
should take a cautious and prudent stance – by using ways that do not overstate
assets and net income. Only about one-third to one-sixth of the market
valuation of firms in the USA is explained by GAAP" (Chen
and Lin, 2004);
Each of the four themes has a set of
associated points (i.e., idea, viewpoints, concepts and findings). Together
they provide an organized way to comprehend the knowledge structure of the intellectual
capital topic. The bolded key words in the quotation reveal, based on the
writer’s intellectual judgement, the key concepts examined in the intellectual
capital literature. The referencing indicated on the points identified informs
the readers where to find the academic articles to learn more about the details
on these points. Readers are also referred to the Literature on management accounting Facebook page for additional
information on this topic. The process of conducting the thematic analysis is
an exploratory as well as synthetic learning endeavour on the topic’s
literature. Once the structure of the themes, sub-themes[1]
and their associated points are finalized, the reviewer is in a position to
move forward to step 2 of the MMBLR approach. The MMBLR approach step 2
finding, i.e., a companion mind map on intellectual capital, is presented in
the next section.
Mind
mapping-based literature review on intellectual capital (IC): step 2 (mind
mapping) output
By adopting the findings from the MMBLR
approach step 1 on intellectual capital, the writer constructs a companion mind
map shown as Figure 1.
Referring to the mind map on intellectual
capital, the topic label is shown right at the centre of the map as a large
blob. Four main branches are attached to it, corresponding to the four themes
identified in the thematic analysis. The links and ending nodes with key
phrases represent the points from the thematic analysis. The key phrases have
also been bolded in the quotations provided in the thematic analysis. As a
whole, the mind map renders an image of the knowledge structure on intellectual
capital based on the thematic analysis findings. Constructing the mind map is
part of the learning process on literature review. The mind mapping process is
speedy and entertaining. The resultant mind map also serves as a useful
presentation and teaching material. This mind mapping exercise confirms the
writer’s previous experience on using the MMBLR approach (Ho, 2016). Readers
are also referred to the Literature on
literature review Facebook page and the Literature
on mind mapping Facebook page for additional information on these two
topics.
Concluding
remarks
The MMBLR approach to study intellectual
capital provided here is mainly for its practice illustration as its procedures
have been refined via a number of its employment on an array of topics (Ho,
2016). No major additional MMBLR steps nor notions have been introduced in this
article. In this respect, the exercise reported here primarily offers some
pedagogical value as well as some systematic and stimulated learning on intellectual
capital in the field of Strategic Management. Nevertheless, the thematic
findings and the image of the knowledge structure on intellectual capital in
the form of a mind map should also be of academic value to those who research
on intellectual capital.
Bibliography
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Pdf version at: https://www.academia.edu/32251848/Mind_mapping_the_topic_of_intellectual_capital_IC_
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