Weightless Wealth Research

Research

Are you interested in the following topics:

-            How can we measure and report intellectual capital?

-            What is the effect of IC measurement activities and outcomes on organizations?

-            What are the benefits and limitations of the intellectual capital metaphor?

-            What is the role of metaphor in our conceptualization and understanding of organizations?

-            How can we do organizational research that is both rigorous and relevant?

These are the questions that – at the moment  – are at the top of my mind.

Measurement and reporting of IC

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Since 1997 I have been studying ways to measure, value and report intellectual capital (see publications). I have tried to clarify the various motives to measure IC and the various models that exist, and  I have developed and tested my own method (Andriessen, 2004).

There are too many measurement models available that do not meet quality standards that can be derived from measurement theory.

Many methods do not specify what problem they try to solve and can therefore be typified as ‘a solution in search of a cause’.

Many methods have been proposed, but few have been tested in practice.

We should spend more time on diagnosing the problems we want our measurement methods to solve. Simply stating, “what gets measured gets managed” is no longer sufficient.

We should develop instruments to diagnose situations in organizations, based on an IC perspective.

We should do more testing of existing methods for the measurement and reporting of IC.

Effects of measurement

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What happens in organizations when we start to measure things? How does measurement influence the way managers view organizations? What is the role of numbers in decision making?

Many authors take the need for measurement for granted. But why should we measure? We know that measuring intangibles is shaky anyway so we can’t say measurement automatically produces more reliable results.

When testing IC measurement methods we can ask specific questions to managers about the role of numbers.

We could do experiments where we provide the same information to two groups of managers or analysts, one qualitative, one quantitative.

The intellectual capital metaphor

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The concept of intellectual capital is – like any abstract concept – based on metaphor (Andriessen, 2006). It is in fact based on two metaphorical conceptualizations of knowledge: KNOWLEDGE AS A RESOURCE and KNOWLEDGE AS CAPITAL.

Metaphors are indispensable for conceptualization and understanding. However, we need to be aware that metaphors highlight certain things and conceal others. For example, the KNOWLEDGE AS A RESOURCE ignores that knowledge is subjective and difficult to elicit.

My study showed that almost all 22 metaphors for knowledge used by authors like Nonake & Takeuchi, Davenport & Prusak, and Stewart are ‘industrial’ metaphors. (Andriessen, 2006).

We can study which are the most popular metaphors for knowledge.

We can study the limitations of certain metaphors for knowledge and show how they impact our thinking about management and measurement of knowledge.

We can try to find new, ‘non-industrial’ metaphors for knowledge.

The role of metaphor in organizational research

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An organization does not objectively exist out there in the world. The concept of organizations is an abstract concept. There are numerous ways to conceptualize organizations as we can see from the many different definitions about what an organization is.

What you say is what you get. An organization is a social phenomenon that is created the moment we talk or think about it. But are we using the best metaphors to conceptualize organizations? Gareth Morgan has already shown there are at least 9 different metaphors we can use but there are probably more.

We can study the metaphors that managers use when they talk and think about their organization.

We can study how that influences the problems and challenges they identify and the solutions they apply.

We can study the metaphors leading academics use and the way that influences their view or organizations.

A design approach to organizational research

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Over the years there have been many debates about what constitutes good management and organizational research. Currently there is more and more concern about the relevance of this research. How can one do organizational research that is both rigorous and relevant for practice?

The majority of organizational research is based on a narrow view on academic rigor, which leads to knowledge that is reductionistic and useless in practice. This is enforced by the top-journals that are too conservative in their methodological approach, which forces academics to only apply certain research strategies, because: “publish or perish”.

There are ways to do organizational research that is both relevant and rigorous. One example is the design approach for doing research as advocated by Van Aken and others. We should do more research like this, which is a combination of solving problems in real-life situations and reflection to create new ‘ design knowledge’.

If you feel inspired or triggered by these research topics, please email me.