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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great guide to developing & managing intellectual capital., 27 Jan 2000
By A Customer
This is a useful, intelligent and very readable book. Every now and again you come across a body of ideas that allow you to see something familiar from a new and enlightening perspective, so that familiar material makes sense in a whole new way. That was my experience repeatedly in reading this book.There's plenty of agreement in business for 'our people are our most valuable asset'. As a consultant specialising in increasing the value of that asset, it was a joy for me to explore a fresh and powerful set of financial arguments for actually trusting, empowering and investing in people! Stewart defines intellectual capital as 'intellectual material - knowledge, information, intellectual property, experience - that can be put to use to create wealth.' He argues that knowledge has become the pre-eminent economic resource. If that's so, it makes sense that managing it becomes the most important economic task of individuals and businesses. The big question is 'how do you do that?' At the heart of the book is Stewart's answer to that question; the distinction he draws between three kind of intellectual capital - human, structural and customer capital - and his discussion of strategies for managing and developing each of them. The book explores the practical consequences of this for the economy, companies, and individual careers. He even has interesting and practical things to say in the area where most 'soft skills' specialists get stuck - how to measure and account for what they do. One good test of a business book is 'does reading it actually make you do things differently?' We've already started.
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by Michael E. Porter
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