Investigating the current state and impact of the intellectual capital academic discipline

Authors：Alexander Serenko; Nick Bontis

Source：Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2013, 14(4): 476-500.

DOI：10.1108/JIC-11-2012-0099

• Intellectual capital
• Sciences
• Classification

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to: investigate the current state of intellectual capital (IC) as an academic discipline, and explore the impact of IC on the state of practice. Design/methodology/approach - The most influential articles published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital were identified. Analysis of their cited and citing works was done. Findings - The IC discipline: first, successfully disseminates its knowledge beyond the English language world but ignores research published in languages other than English; second, has higher self-citation rates; third, uses books for the development of its theoretical foundation; fourth, successfully converts experiential knowledge into academic knowledge; fifth, exerts a limited yet potentially increasing practical impact; and sixth, is at the theoretical consolidation stage of prescience and is progressing toward becoming a reference discipline. No anomalies in the development of the IC discipline were observed. Practical implications - IC researchers should pay more attention to works published in non- English journals. Given the status of IC as a professional discipline, they should continue using nonpeer reviewed sources to convert experiential knowledge into academic knowledge. They also need to promote their research far beyond the traditional IC domain. Originality/value - To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first empirical analysis of the IC discipline from the reference discipline perspective.

• Institution
  McMaster university