Knowledge management, intellectual capital and entrepreneurship: a structured literature review

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze within the knowledge management (KM) stream the relationship between KM and intellectual capital (IC) and entrepreneurship (E). IC is a pivotal intangible resource to firms to generate knowledge. Knowledge and information are strategic for today’s company life. IC is generated and dynamically recombined by knowledge, produces knowledge and is feed by knowledge itself, both codified and tacit. For those reasons, the paper is motivated to understand how IC can represent valuable knowledge and how it can turn into innovation, through KM and practices. It is also voted to stimulate literature on understanding how innovation can serve E capabilities for firms’ business models, as innovation is not necessarily linked to a technological breakthrough. IC is functional to KM practices, as entrepreneurs can use IC and knowledge as a strategic management toolbox to innovate. Design/methodology/approach The main aim of the paper is to understand the state of the art on these central issues in KM literature. The paper uses a structure literature review (SLR) methodology, gathering papers by Scopus database for the period 2000–2019, on the relationship between KM and IC and E. The second aim is to understand for future research how do managers use IC as an opportunity to innovate and as a vehicle to transfer knowledge. The authors wondered about the qualification/quantification of “knowledge” as a crucial component of IC, which is in turn the riskier, but the more representative, a component of intangibles assets in the era of knowledge. Findings As for the first research question, the findings show that, actually, as the research has been started, IC, KM and E are still engaged separately by scholars, even if few efforts to match them together have been performed. The results depict a general fragmented and unsystematic vision of the relationship between the three topics. As for the future of the research about these topics, the authors found that scholars should catch the opportunity to go beyond the traditional theoretical mainstream on these issues. There is an urge to move the focus of KM and IC research toward new models of their interconnection, by including the social capital, namely, knowledge capabilities (explicit or not), etc., which are able to turn knowledge in innovation and competitive advantage, from an accounting perspective (recognizing IC’s components affecting the performance of firms, among which knowledge is the most important) and from a theoretical point of view (reducing the misalignment between the epistemological concept of KM requirements and the effective perception of organizational KM activities to extract value from KM initiatives). Research limitations/implications The results, even if suffering from some limitations due to the performing of the methodology, offers several implications for academic research. The future of KM of the IC resources is clearly likely to lie on the recognition of the component of knowledge, as well as on the recognizing of new forms of social capital such as entrepreneurial capital, which is connected to innovation and creativity and firm value. An integrative framework of IC measurement should be built to link IC with KM and E. This is to guarantee that the measurement of IC does contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of KM. Practical implications Practical contribution to accounting perspective. In fact, the relations between these three topics could be highly beneficial to validate, in the dynamic societies and organizations, how it is important the entrepreneur’s learning process and its content is fundamental in the quest for new business opportunities/innovations, stated that learning is a crucial factor for entrepreneurial activity and has a structural impact on business models of industrial organizations. The difficulty to recognize in the balance sheet human capital relation could be limited by the introduction of the component of KM practices codification and E attitude and influence to operate this transformation of human capital in organized structural capital. The authors would not give the solution to that problem. The authors just want to address the discussion. Social implications The inspiring conclusion from previous studies is to think in a new way at the role of knowledge-based IC in organizational E. Starting from the assertion that knowledge-based process of innovation and E are linked, it can be tested, also from case studies help or empirical application that organizations with a pleasant level of IC are more likely to be more innovative and in conclusion, have a higher market value. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is to afford for the first time, to the best knowledge, an SLR on the interaction in literature among KM, IC and E, simultaneously, to understand where literature research actually is focusing and to lead future thoughts, at a managerial level, toward the interacting implications of KM and IC on value creation by innovation, which is one stream E literature. Although recently scholars have been concerning more empirically about the relationship between KM, IC and E, they are more focused on theoretical aspects than about new ways to look at IC. The future of KM and IC research is clearly likely to lie on the recognition of the component of knowledge, as well as recognizing new forms of social capital such as entrepreneurial capital, which is connected to innovation and creativity. An integrative framework of IC measurement through KM should be built to link IC measurement with KM. This is to guarantee that measurement of IC does contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of KM practices.

Linking Critical Thinking and Knowledge Management: A Conceptual Analysis

“…Nevertheless, effective knowledge management processes only occur when employee knowledge is transformed into the intellectual capital of an organization. Intellectual capital is generated and dynamically recombined by knowledge, produces knowledge, and is fed by knowledge itself, both codified and tacit [4]. At present, the expression of an organization's value needs to be more focused on employee retention, using their knowledge and innovative skills to emphasize the image and brand and build core equity [73].…”

“…However, knowledge itself may be of little use without effective management. Knowledge management is described in the literature as "a popular challenge to today's organizations" [3] (p. 153), "the most critical ingredient in recipes for organizational success" [3] (p. 153), "strategic for today's company life" [4] (p. 1797), or a source of success in a sustainable organization [5,6]. Thus, the dissemination of knowledge and information and the use of co-created knowledge is directly linked to the emergence of innovative business models and the potential for sustainable business development [7][8][9].…”

Configuring foreign market knowledge and opportunity recognition capabilities to predict the performance of export-manufacturing firms

“…Example items are foreign business knowledge (i.e., knowledge about competitors; about foreign clients; distribution channels; and about effective marketing), institutional knowledge (i.e., foreign business laws and regulations; about host government agencies; and about language and norms), and internationalisation knowledge (i.e., business experience; ability to deal foreign business contracts; and managing international operations). Opportunity recognition capabilities were measured by opportunity exploration capability (four items) (Cohen & Winn, 2007;Corbett, 2005;Wei et al, 2011), and opportunity exploitation capability (four items) (Ko & Butler, 2006;Lubatkin et al, 2006;Pacho, 2018). Example items of opportunity exploration capability are "continuously explore new markets and new opportunities", "driven by the perception of opportunity while not constrained by the resources at hand", "continuously try to discover additional needs of our customer of which they are unaware", and "search for opportunities in areas where customer have a difficult time expressing the needs" (Wei et al, 2011, p. 13).…”

“…Our study advances the knowledge management literature by demonstrating various benefits of FMK in conjunction with opportunity exploration and exploitation capabilities of the firm that are advantageous to performance. Third, unlike prior studies that predominantly apply reductionist bivariate analysis in the knowledge management literature concerning entrepreneurship (Paoloni et al, 2020), our study embraces equifinality and applies fsQCA (Hughes et al, 2017). Because reductionist bivariate analysis often causes unsupported hypothesis and important determinants to firm success get omitted (Woodside, 2014).…”

Managerial challenges to promoting competency-based intellectual capital in emerging market economies – developing a framework for implications

“…The vertical and horizontal alignment of competencies with organizational strategic objectives and functional goals ensures IC's creation. The collective knowledge, skills, and attitude (KSA) ensure contributing to intangible assets like IC (Paoloni, Coluccia, Fontana, & Solimene, 2020). The firm's organizational capability is improved as CM aligns an individual with job, role, and function, thus creating IC clusters at the leadership, specific function, or organization's specific capability.…”