Call for papers: Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management: a European View

Call for papers: Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management: a European View

A special issue of International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital

While human capital has always been a primary focus in human resource management research, a recent trend has witnessed increased consideration of intellectual capital rather than a focus solely on human capital. Intellectual capital can be broadly conceptualised as the sum of all knowledge an organization is able to leverage in the process of conducting business to gain competitive advantage. More specifically, intellectual capital may comprise at least three forms of capital – human, social, and organisational.

Human capital refers to individual employee capabilities – their knowledge, skills and abilities. Social capital, in contrast, does not reside with any individual. Rather, it reflects the aggregate of resources embedded within, available through, and derived from, the network of relationships. Finally, organisational capital refers to institutionalised knowledge and codified experience stored in processes, routines, databases, patents, manuals, structures, and the like.

While still in its infancy, this growing focus on social and organisational capital in conjunction with human capital presents a much different understanding for the role of HRM in organisations and raises many important questions such as:

• If intellectual capital involves relationships and institutionalised knowledge, as well as human capital, how should HRM systems be designed to maximize the potential of a firm's intellectual capital?
• What are the relationships among human capital, social capital, and organisational capital?
• Intellectual capital often implies a focus on knowledge management - with an increased focus on knowledge, how do we encourage learning, knowledge creation, and knowledge sharing among employees?
• Where does intellectual capital reside? Is it within a company, across companies, across countries? How is knowledge from disparate locations coordinated and leveraged?
• How does the management of intellectual capital influence innovation, value creation, performance, and competitive advantage? What are the global implications of these effects?

This Special Issue aims to address these questions from a European perspective.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Human resource management
• Innovation
• Intellectual capital management
• Intellectual capital reports
• Knowledge management
• Organisational learning
• Social capital

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 15 June 2008
Notification to authors: 1 July 2008
Final versions due: 15 July 2008