Intellectual capital, in one form or another, is implicated in recent economic, managerial, technological, and sociological developments in a manner previously unknown and largely unforeseen?
Intellectual capital is human tacit knowledge ? Largely intangible ? However, there must be tangible ways to harness and manage this knowledge. Intellectual capital should not be looked at as intellectual property, though. Examples of intellectual property are copyrights, patents and design rights. "Until recently, while people spend a good deal of time and space paying lip service to the concept, only a few have really tried to define it, and even fewer seem to have placed much value on it." Ultimately, intellectual capital is "the pursuit of effective use of knowledge as opposed to information"
Corporations are figuring it out that it's important to, well,capitalize, on people's knowledge and information (as opposed to manufactured, tangible products). People make big money by consulting around intellectual capital, protecting it, and creating software to manage it. In fact, the business of knowledge management is booming. Knowledge management is "the name of a concept in which an enterprise consciously and comprehensively gathers, organizes, shares, and analyzes its knowledge in terms of resources, documents, and people skills"
Knowledge management is closely tied to intellectual capital ? A business must successfully manage its intellectual capital ? and there is software, consulting and accounting practices that tie to knowledge management. There is true economic value attached to "intangible assets (structural, organizational capital; human capital)"
