The Main Intellectual Capital Components

Int. J. Transitions and Innovation Systems, Vol. 1, No.
3, 2011 271
The main intellectual capital components that are

relevant to the product, process and management
firm innovativeness
Helena Santos-Rodrigues*
Economic and Management Sciences Department,
Technological and Management School,
Viana do Castelo Polytechnic Institute, Avenida do Atlântico,
4900-348 Viana do Castelo, Portugal
E-mail: hsantos@estg.ipvc.pt
*Corresponding author
Pedro Figueroa Dorrego

Marketing and Organization Department,
Communication and Social Sciences, Vigo University,
Campus A Xunqueira, s/n, 36005-Pontevedra, Spain
E-mail: Figueroa@uvigo.es
Carlos Mª. Fernandez-Jardon

Applied Economics Department,
Economic and Management Sciences Faculty,
Vigo University,
Lagoas Marcosende s/n Apdo. 874 36200 Vigo, Spain
E-mail: cjardon@uvigo.es
Abstract: This paper focuses on the influence of the human, structural and
relational capital on the product-process and management innovativeness of the
firm. A global model including variables used in previous literature is used and
we establish hypotheses for testing this model and use statistic technique to
estimate the parameters of the model in a sample. To do so, we use a survey
from 68 firms working on the auto components sector, established in the
Northern Spain and Northern Portugal. We found firstly, that innovativeness
has two main dimensions, perfectly differentiated, the product-process
innovation and the management innovation; secondly, that the intellectual
capital components influences differently each type of innovation capacity
(innovativeness). We concluded that the human and relational capital influence
positive and directly the product-process innovativeness and that the structural
capital influences positive and directly the management innovativeness.
These results highlight the importance and influence of the intellectual capital
on the innovativeness. Moreover, they point out the different character of
product-process and management innovativeness.
Keywords: intellectual capital; IC; innovativeness; human capital; structural

capital; relational capital; innovation.
Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

272 H. Santos-Rodrigues et al.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Santos-Rodrigues, H.,

Dorrego, P.F. and Fernandez-Jardon, C.Mª. (2011) ‘The main intellectual
capital components that are relevant to the product, process and management
firm innovativeness’, Int. J. Transitions and Innovation Systems, Vol. 1, No. 3,
pp.271–301.
Biographical notes: Helena Santos-Rodrigues is the 2011 winner of the

Extraordinary PhD Award of the Vigo University for the excellence of the PhD
Investigation. In 2010, she won the Investigation Award ‘Catedra da
Universidade de Vigo’ (Spain) for the research on the influence of the
intellectual capital on the firm innovativeness, applied to the automotive sector
of Northern Spain and Northern Portugal. She has a PhD from the Vigo
University, Spain, an MBA in International Marketing and Finances, and
graduated from Catholic University-Oporto, Portugal. She is a Titular Professor
of Management in the Economic and Management Sciences Department from
the Technological and Management School from the Viana do Castelo
Polytechnic Institute Portugal, were she teaches marketing, organisation and
strategy. She also teaches at the Vigo University, Spain and the Aberta
University, Portugal. She is also enrolled in many researchers’ projects and has
published several papers. Her research interests are: intellectual capital,
knowledge management and innovation.
Pedro Figueroa Dorrego is a Doctor in Economics and Titular Professor of

Management in the Management and Marketing Department, at the Vigo
University (Spain). He has an International Diploma in Information Systems
Management (INRIA CEPIA-Versailles), Executive-MBA Business School
Caixanova and expert in knowledge management and intellectual capital
(Euroforum, U. Complutense and INSEAD). He has been the Director of
Business School, and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Vigo University
and Director of Graduate Business Programmes from Caixanova Business
School. He has several papers and publications on enterprise systems and
strategy, and regional development, innovation and internationalisation,
knowledge management. He is the Director of the Research Group G4plus
Analysis, Diagnosis and Strategic Business Design, Chains and Territories of
the Vigo University.
Carlos Mª. Fernandez-Jardon holds two PhDs, one in CC Economics and the
other in CC Mathematics. He is a Titular Professor of Econometrics at the
Faculty of Economics and Business, Vigo University, is Executive-MBA from
Caixanova Business School and expert in knowledge management and
intellectual capital (Euroforum, U. Complutense and INSEAD). He has several
publications on specialised topics such as company data analysis, applications
to business, the use of econometric tools for financial management,
internationalisation of business and regional development. He has also worked
in cooperation projects in Argentina and Paraguay, to develop strategic plans.
1 Introduction
We are moving towards a knowledge-based economy where intangible assets and

investments are seen as essential elements to value creation in companies. Carbone
et al. (2005) affirm that, in an increasingly globalised world, the survival of
companies depends on their capacity to innovate derived, mostly, from their
The main intellectual capital components 273
organisational intelligence, which is represented by their information and

knowledge systems, the competencies of their employees, the quality of their production
processes and their customer service. Moreover, to success in this context, or simply
remain viable, companies must respond with innovation (Govindarajan and Trimble,
2005).
Because knowledge has become a critical ingredient to gain a competitive advantage,
particularly in the new economic landscape (Grant, 1996; Kane et al., 2005). The source
of economic value and wealth is the creation and management of intangible assets,
frequently grouped under the generic term ‘knowledge’, ‘intangibles’, or ‘intellectual
capital’ (IC) (Lev, 2001). Carbone et al. (2005) affirm that knowledge has come to be
seen as a major production differential and that the companies’ management of these
intangible assets are determinants for their growth and sustainability.
Reed et al. (2006) propose the vision of the company based on IC (IC-based view
of the firm), plus focused and less general than the theory of resources and capabilities.
This proposal presents a study of organisations focused on their stocks and flows of
knowledge, analysed from the perspective of the different dimensions of IC.
Although some attempts to measure IC have been made so far, there is still a long
way to go. Intangibles and IC have become a major issue not only for academics, but also
for governments, regulators, enterprises, investors and other stakeholders during the last
decade. Knowledge is a critical input of production processes, so a firm’s capability to
use and combine various sources of knowledge that could transform intangible resources
into value constitutes a source of competitive advantage.
The IC is increasingly considered a source of competitive advantage. Furthermore,
the sustainable competitive advantage conduce to superior performances (Peteraf, 1993),
and the competitive advantage based on knowledge is more sustainable (Davenport and
Prusak, 1998) because the most the firm knows, the most it can learn (Cohen and
Levinthal, 1990).
Some firms have created a superior competitive advantage throughout a superior and
unique ownership of critical intangible resources, namely, IC. While much research
attention has focused on understanding how knowledge is created and distributed, little is
known about performance enhancement offered by IC. The IC is the firm capacity to
transform knowledge and intangible assets in wealth, building resources (Edvinsson,
2002), so it can be viewed as source of sustainable competitively.
Bollen et al. (2005) find a positive relationship between IC indicators and firm
performance. In that sense, there have been made recent efforts to link IC and innovation
(as a source of competitive advantage), some considerer that IC is an innovation input
(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 2002; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Ahuja, 2000; Tsai and
Ghoshal, 1998; Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) others
considerer that innovation is a result of the IC (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 2002; Cohen and
Levinthal, 1990; Ahuja, 2000; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998; Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005;
Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Santos Rodrigues, 2008), others that the innovation process
is a knowledge management process (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 2002; Cohen and Levinthal,
1990; Ahuja, 2000; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998; Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Nonaka
and Takeuchi, 1995), or that different innovative capacities vary on the type of
knowledge needed (Cardinal, 2001).
Relatively little is known about the drivers of innovativeness, Subramaniam and
Youndt (2005), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (2002), and Ahuja (2000) had empirically
connected the IC, knowledge management and the innovativeness.
Chen et al. (2006) analysed the influence of IC in the innovative competence of the
companies, and found that the three dimensions of IC considered (human capital,
structural capital and relational capital) have a significant positive correlation with the
innovative efforts of the firms. Wu et al. (2008) conducted a similar study analysing how
some organisational features can enhance the relationship between IC and innovation.
Among other findings, some empirical study shows that companies that have higher
levels of IC have superior innovation performance. Bueno et al. (2010) study empirically
the impact of tangible and intangible assets in the innovation and overall business
performance. Their results note that although the two types of assets were positively
related with firm innovation and performance, were the intangible assets that showed the
most obvious influence.
Nevertheless, the interest showed on the innovativeness of the firm and the factors
that influence on it, there has been little results about this liaison (Wan et al., 2005).
Because IC and innovativeness are becoming more tightly couple over time, more
conceptual and empirical work need to be build on. While the extant research is mainly
theoretical, additional inquiry is warranted to provide a more holistic view of IC and how
it affects firm performance.
Accordingly, our paper attempt to help to close the gap between IC and the
innovativeness of the firm, in that sense, we focus on the impact of the human capital
jointly with the structural and relational capital on the product, process and management
innovativeness of the firm.
Therefore, our research question is:
• Does the IC influence the product process and management innovativeness?
The structure of this article is indicated in the following. After introduction of the topic,
the bibliographical review is presented addressing the conceptualisation of IC and
innovativeness. Based on this bibliographical review, the research hypothesis to be
subsequently tested is formulated. Next, the research method adopted is described. Then,
the data collected are analysed and the research hypothesis is tested. By way of
conclusion, final conclusions are presented and future research steps are recommended to
assist in testing the exploratory propositions formulated in this work.
2 Literature review
The literature on knowledge management (as a strategic asset) serves as the foundations
for the delineation of the firms IC (Roos et al., 1997; Bontis et al., 1999; Edvinsson
and Sullivan, 1996). Knowledge-based resources have grown in importance because
knowledge has become a critical ingredient for gaining a competitive advantage,
particularly in the new economic landscape (Grant, 1996).
The resource-based view of the firm theory (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991) and the
subsequent knowledge-based view of the firm (Grant, 1996) and Reed et al. (2006)
proposition of the ‘vision of the company based on IC’ (IC-based view of the firm)
provide the foundations for our assertion that IC can serve as a strategic resource that
influence innovative outcomes.
The research interest on IC has been growing fast in later years, especially in
firms were benefits derive majority from innovation and knowledge intensive
services (Edvinsson and Sullivan, 1996). The literature considers that firms with
superior intellectual resources understand, better than the competitors, how to
explore, deploy, combine and configure resources and capacities on a distinct way, that
gives to clients more value than the competitors (Spender and Marr, 2005; Teece et al.,
1997).
Innovation that may serve as the basis for competitive advantage (Khazanchi et al.,
2007), is strongly linked to knowledge (Levinthal and March, 1993; McGrath, 2001;
Peng et al., 2008). Peng et al. (2008) describe the innovation-knowledge linkage as “the
essence of innovation has been characterised as pursuit of new knowledge for discovery”.
Therefore, the alignment of knowledge, as an intangible resource, with the innovation
strategy could enhance performance and culminate in a competitive advantage (Grant,
1996).
2.1 Intellectual capital
The management literature distinguishes two different roots in knowledge research (Marr
et al., 2004):
• one root centred on information and knowledge and it management
• other root centred on knowledge as a strategic asset that allows a better firm
performance.
From this distinction, come up, respectively, two different concepts:
• knowledge management
• IC management.
Both perspectives rely on the management of knowledge with different focusing, but the
distinction is not easy (Petty and Guthrie, 2000). One is focused on the identification and
management of the knowledge (knowledge management) and the other on the
management of strategic and valuable knowledge resources (IC).
IC of a company is defined as all non-monetary and non-physical resources that are
fully or partly controlled by the organisation and that contribute to the value creation of
the organisation (Roos et al., 2005). The concept of IC helps to let intangible resources of
a company be measured, communicated and interpreted [see Andriessen (2004) and Roos
et al. (2005) for introductions into the discipline].
Following this last approach, there is no consensus about the categorisation of
the different strategic knowledge assets. Even though the debate about the components
of the IC is still partially open, the IC components, recognised and mainly accepted in
most of the literature, are human capital, structural capital and relational capital
(see Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Sveiby, 1997; IADE-CIC, 2003; Santos Rodrigues,
2008).
2.1.1 Human capital
In this sense, the human capital represent the value of the knowledge and talent which is
embodied in people who make up the organisation, representing it know-how, the
capacities, the knowledge, talent, competence, attitude, intellectual agility, creativity, and
others (IADE-CIC, 2003; Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Bontis and Fitz-Enz, 2002;
Edmonson, 1999; Roos et al., 1997; Davenport et al., 2003; Kaplan and Norton, 1996;
Santos Rodrigues, 2008).
Some recent studies focus on the relationship between human capital and innovation
in general. A modern view of the innovation emphasises the exchange of information and
participation in the innovation process within the different enterprises units, including
marketing, production, research, design and development. Leiponen (2005) argues that a
strong skills base benefits the innovative companies; also suggests that the need for
qualified employees is not limited to the functions of R&D. An empirical study carried
out, by the author, in Finland companies, confirmed the proposition that companies get
better results in their innovation process and in its external R&D collaboration initiatives
if their employees have higher qualifications.
Hayton (2005) literature review of the influence of human capital of the members of
companies senior management and the respective innovative capacity found that the
cognitive resources (skills) and values of the management team have a significant
influence over the strategic decisions in the company. Shipton et al. (2005) in his work
conclude that the oriented development of human capital has positive impact on the
innovation performance.
To sum up, a group of highly motivated and uniquely capable people is a competitive
advantage because they represent firm-specific resources that are important, rare and hard
to duplicate. That is, firms with highly skilled and knowledgeable employees have higher
levels of human capital and are more likely to create knowledge, make correct decisions
and hence, result in better organisational innovativeness (Hitt et al., 2001).
Nevertheless, it is difficult to know how to encourage employees to contribute with
their knowledge for organisational gains. People may be reluctant to share crucial
knowledge for fear of losing ownership, a position of privilege or superiority. Other
factor likely to affect the transfer of knowledge between groups is the quality of the
knowledge owned by a rotating member compared to a group’s existing knowledge
(Kane et al., 2005). Nevertheless, there is some evidence that knowledge transfer has
direct effects on performance and contributes to the competitiveness of organisations
(Kane et al., 2005). Knowledge embedded in the interactions of people, tools, and tasks
provides a basis for competitive advantage of firms (Argote and Ingram, 2000).
Thus, for the benefits of the organisation, managers should aware an innovative
attitude and incentive employed to engage an innovative attitude. They should emphasise
employee capability development as well as their commitment. Human capital therefore
should involve employee competencies (e.g., skills, know-how and capabilities) as well
as their commitment (e.g., willingness to devote themselves to, and work for, the
company).
2.1.2 Structural capital
Shipton et al. (2005) call attention to the growing empirical evidence showing that the
transformation processes of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, can lead to
substantial improvements in the enterprises innovativeness.
Structural capital is defined as “knowledge, skills, experiences and information,
institutionalised, codified, and used by databases, patents, manuals, structures, systems,
routines and processes” (Youndt et al., 2004). Most papers do not directly analyse the
effect of structural capital on innovation, but only some of the aspects that comprise it.
There is evidence of a strong correlation between corporate culture and innovative
performance (Neely and Hii, 1999). For instance, Rouse and Daellenbach (1999) consider
that sustainable advantage is driven by culture. A business culture that encourages risk
(Wan et al., 2005) and encourages the development of new ideas, supporting controlled
error (Farson and Keyes, 2002) may be more innovative. The culture can be developed to
foster innovation and learning (Denisi et al., 2003).
The skills and knowledge embedded in physical systems and management of a
company are formed by the culture of the company. As culture is seen as the key to
develop the resources and expertise of innovation (Neely and Hii, 1999), for employees
to be motivated to innovate must have a culture that supports and rewards innovation
(Wan et al., 2005), this cultural aspect may be a competitive advantage (Bontis and
Fitz-Enz, 2002).
Some authors define innovative culture and social environment as the one where
participants believe they should interact each other, this shapes the behaviour of a
pervasive and resistant to change. The more effective culture for knowledge creation is
the one that bears the identification of people with the company, and the trust and sense
of efficacy (Sveiby and Simons, 2002).
Other authors include innovation at the corporate culture where the company with a
culture of innovation is one that is innovative and have willing to try new experiments,
which is opportunistic, which is not restricted to rules and standards, and has courage to
take risks. Is the one with a work environment that fosters the active participation of
people in the business innovation (IADE-CIC, 2003).
2.1.3 Relational capital

Through relation with business partners, firms can gain access to external knowledge, and
there is some evidence, for instance, that spatial proximity between organisations
facilitates the interactions (Torre and Rallet, 2005), and, consequently firms could
exchange more knowledge and eventually have a higher innovative performance
(Weterings and Boschma, 2009).
Pike et al. (2005) cite various empirical studies that show that encouraging and
maintaining knowledge flows beyond the boundaries of the company and across different
scientific areas, becomes more productive the R&D efforts.
External relations with clients, suppliers and other agents also enrich the company’s
culture (Jardón and Martos, 2009). If the organisations want to institutionalise this
knowledge (at the organisational level), must protect it from the threats that suppose the
abandonment of the company by key employees and the loss of this relations. For this
reason, the organisations must institutionalise this knowledge in routines, culture,
structures, etc.
Rastogi (2003) consider as sources of knowledge the production alliances, joint
ventures, patent licensing, the transfer/share of knowledge and experience in sales,
consulting services and the acquisition of firms with high quality complementary
competencies.
According to Xie and Johnston (2004), 65% of non-USA and 75% of USA companies
are involved in some type of strategic alliance and the formation of alliances has grown at
the rate of 25% per year, since 1985. It should be stressed that although strategic alliances
derive from the cooperation between firms, not all cooperation between companies
constitutes a strategic alliance. On a strategic alliance, the objective of their cooperation
must be the generation of sustainable competitive advantages (Varadarajan et al., 2001;
Xie and Johnston, 2004).
2.2 Innovativeness
The innovative firm is one that has implemented an innovation (product, process,
marketing or organisational innovation) during the period under review (OCDE/UE,
2005). Roos et al. (1997, p.39) define innovation as “an intellectual agility, tightly linked
to competence; the ability to use knowledge and skills; the ability to build on previous
knowledge and generate new knowledge”. That means that the innovativeness involves
the creation of new knowledge, or a novel recombination of existing knowledge.
Organisations that are unable to innovate may invest time and resources in studying
markets but are unable to translate this knowledge into practice. Innovation is a mean to
change an organisation, as a response to change that occur in its internal or external
environment.
In this line, innovativeness is the firm’s capacity to engage innovation; that is, the
capacity to introduce new processes, products, and management or market ideas into the
organisation. This capacity to innovate is among the most important factors that impact
on business performance.
An innovation “is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product
(good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method
in business practices, workplace organization or external relations” [OCDE/UE, (2005),
p.33].
The firms’ innovativeness constitutes an antecedent of the innovative activity (Hurley
and Hult, 1998). For instance, the capability to develop new products and processes
rapidly and efficiently is a powerful source of competitive advantage (Wheelwright and
Clark, 1994).
In most industries, most of the innovation effort is still made by firms themselves, but
it is often assumed that individual firms are rarely capable to innovate independently and
even the firms that involve external partners in their innovation process, they depend on a
considerable degree on their own internal knowledge.
3 Hypothesis
Knowledge assets of firms are positively related to their level of innovation (Thornhill,
2006). So, to create new or better products, firms must reallocate resources, combine new
resources or combine existing resources, both inside and outside firms, in new ways (Tsai
and Ghoshal, 1998).
Previous studies had suggested that organisational innovativeness is, for instance,
closely related to human capital and organisational learning (Nahapiet and Ghoshal,
2002).
Thus, we predict the following:
H1 Human capital is positively related with the innovativeness of the firm.
H2 Structural capital is positively related with the innovativeness of the firm.
H3 Relational capital is positively related with the innovativeness of the firm.
Hereby, we predict the influence of human, structural and relational capital on the main
innovation outputs, the product, process and management innovation. The organisation
innovation studies are mostly centred on one innovation output, and normally considered
the product process and management typologies on an individual and independent way
(Hambrick et al., 1983; Schroeder, 1990). Figure 1 display our hypothesised relationship
between IC and the tree types of innovativeness considered.
Figure 1 Hypothesis
4 Methods
4.1 Sample and data collection

We tested the hypothesis using a survey data collected in 2007 from firms registered on
the main and most representative associations of the sector in Spain and North Portugal.
Those associations that meet the requirements were ‘Fundación Clúster de Empresas de
Automoción de Galicia’ (CEAGA) in representation of the northern Spain (Galicia)
firms, plus the ‘Associação de Fabricantes de Industria Automóvel’ (AFIA) as
representative of companies in North Portugal.
We targeted 135 companies, 66 from Galicia and 69 from the northern of Portugal.
While obtaining a sample of significant linkage of the IC as a strategic resource and it
effect on the innovativeness would allow more comprehensive understanding of the
phenomenon, we relied on upper managers as key expert informants – an established
practice in organisational research (Huber and Power, 1985) – and because are those
whom are aware of the strategic choices.
The survey was constructed in Portuguese and Spanish, while the firms were in to
different countries. To assure the language consistence of the survey it was tested with
some scholars and specialist of the sector. The data collection took place in June 2007 via
regular mail to 135 companies. Each participation request included a description of the
study, a statement of confidentiality, and a way back envelop pre-stamped.
We received 68 responses, for a response rate of 50.37% percent. Of the responses,
45 came from the Galicia firms, while 23 were obtained from the Portuguese firms. Of
the 68 firms responding, we were able to obtain archival performance data equivalent,
thus 68 was our effective sample size.
To assess the randomness of the sample we have done X2-sample population
non-parametric test.
We consider the location variable classification (Galicia and Northern Portugal) and
the respective areas: Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, Pontevedra and Aveiro, Braga, Porto,
Viana, Vila Real, respectively. It proved the value of 8.0522, chi-square with 7 degrees of
freedom we get a tail probability of 0.3280, which is greater than a significance level of
0.05, and therefore, we verify a good fit of the sample to the target population.
Regarding the origin of firms studied (country of origin of the group they belong to)
we verify that companies located in Galicia come mainly from Spain (68.83%), followed
by France (14.89%) and Germany (6.38 %). The remaining companies equally distributed
(2.13%) come from Slovenia, the USA, Switzerland, UK, Japan, Italy and Holland.
Companies located in northern Portugal are mostly (63.64%) of Portuguese origin and the
remainder (13.64) from Spain, as the country of origin of the group. The rest come
equally (4.35%) from Germany (6.38%), the Netherlands and the USA. The remaining
7.24% of companies in the North of Portugal did not identify its origin.
With regard to the early onset of activity, the Galician companies (26.9%) and the
North of Portugal (28.89%) were mostly created in the decade of 80. The remaining
Galician companies were created (descending order) in the 70 to 90 (21.74%) in the 60
(13.04%) in the ‘50s (8.70%) and the ‘40s and 2000 (4.35%). The vast majority of
companies in Northern Portugal were also created in the ‘80s (28.89%), ‘90s (20%), ‘70s
(17.78%), ‘60s and 2000 (11.11%). The remaining is distributed to a lesser extent by the
‘50s (8.89%) and ‘40s (2.22%).
When we analyse the size of the companies surveyed, measured in number of

full-time workers, we verify a greater preponderance of larger companies (between 100
and 4,999 employees) in northern Portugal (77.91%) and Galicia (44, 44%). Galician
companies have mostly (55.55%) between 0 and 99 employees. Most of the Galician
companies (33.33%) are between 20 and 49 employees, 17.78% of companies have
between 50 and 99 workers, 20% of companies have between 100 and 249 workers,
13.33% of companies have between 250 and 499 workers. To a lesser percentage, 6.67%
of the firms have between 500 to 999 employees and 4.44% of the firms have between
1,000 and 4,999 workers.
We verify that the majority (43.48%) of companies in Northern Portugal have 100 to
249 employees, 17.39% of companies have between 250 and 499, 13.04% of the
companies have between 500 and 999 workers and only 4.35% of the firms have between
1000 and 4999. The remaining firms have fewer than 20 employees (4.35%), or between
20 and 40 workers (8.7%) or with 50 to 99 workers (8.7%).
When we analyse the organisational structure of the companies located in Galicia and
Northern Portugal we verify that prevail the functional structure in both territories.
Although this structure is more incisive in companies in Northern Portugal (73.91%) than
in Galician companies (40%).
We found a significant difference between companies in both territories for simple
organisational structure. This occurs in 35.56% of companies located in Galicia,
occurring in 4.35% of the firms located in northern Portugal. The adoption of the matrix
structure is very similar in the companies of Galicia (24.44%) and northern Portugal
(21.74%).
4.2 Measures
Both IC components and innovativeness have been regarded as multidimensional

constructs. This implies the need to establish a series of items to measure them
together. As there are not valid and tested scales due IC, as well as innovativeness, we
have developed new scales for human, structural and relational capital and
innovativeness.
We considered that the main human capital dimensions relevant to the firm
innovativeness were:
• ‘formation and knowledge creation’ (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Youndt and
Snell, 2004; Youndt et al., 2004; IADE-CIC, 2003) as a representation of the
knowledge of the employees due the task development
• ‘innovative attitude’ (Ravichandran, 2000; Osterloh and Frey, 2000; Cabrita and
Bontis, 2008; Mouritsen et al., 2001) as the commitment and willingness of the
employees and employers to innovate
• ‘creativity’ (Mouritsen et al., 2001; IADE-CIC, 2003; Youndt and Snell, 2004;
Youndt et al., 2004; Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Davenport et al., 2003)
representing the willingness, support and value of the creativity of the employees
• ‘incentive to innovativeness’ (Shelton et al., 2005; Ravichandran, 2000; IADE-CIC,

2003, Wan et al., 2005) as the personal and material incentives regarding an
innovative behaviour of the employees.
We considered that the main structural capital dimensions relevant to the firm
• ‘Culture of innovation’, reflects the existence of an innovation-oriented department

in the company, as well as processes designed to foster innovation or a collection
system and implementing new ideas.
• ‘trust’ between employees and the confidence they have on the company and its
management. It also includes the environment of confidence in the company and the
role played by the leader in the enterprise, so call this factor ‘trust’.
• ‘Creation and knowledge development’, includes institutional support to the creation

of knowledge through the existence of groups of valid improvements and use of
employee suggestions well as opening the willing to innovative in processes or
suggest improvements.
We considered that the main relational capital dimensions relevant to the firm
• ‘Networks of collaboration represent the formal or informal input from customers,

suppliers and competitors conducive to innovation in the enterprise. Well as the use
of networking with suppliers to innovate. In this context we call the factor as
‘networks of collaboration’.
• ‘Clients’, is particularly focused on the contributions and importance of customers

for its innovative capacity. It also includes collaboration with knowledge institutions
with a view to innovation and growth of the importance and satisfaction of customers
due to the innovative capacity of the company.
• ‘Competitors alliances’, reflects the importance and structure of partnership

agreements with competitors and partners.
We relied on three performance measures of the innovativeness: the product, process and
management innovation (Hii and Neely, 2000; Ravichandran, 2000; Davenport et al.,
2003; Ahuja, 2000). On our analysis, we considered the relative innovation, meaning that
an innovation is considered new if it is new to the firm, and nevertheless it is not new to
the world or industry.
4.3 Data analysis
To evaluate the different constructs, we will use the principal components technique. This
technique aim to reduce the size of the initial set of items that provide common
information seeking to praise them all and create some new variables which collect
common information, remaining the residual and more specific information for each of
the original items. The variables with communalities less than 0.4 were analysed to be
eliminated as they do not containing information common to the rest of items. To select
the number of factors we take into account the Kaiser method, the scree plot and those
that explain at least 50% of the total variance (Costello and Osborne, 2005).
Having reduced the information to better understand its meaning, we make use of a
rotation process of adjusting to the different axes original items so no information is lost.
Traditionally, it uses a technique that maintains varimax orthogonal relationship between
the components involved, ensuring uncorrelated (Harman, 1980).
The degree of validity of this technique is given by two auxiliary instruments: Bartlett
test and the coefficient of Kaiser-Meyer and Okin (KMO). The first tested whether the
correlation matrix between the original items is an identity matrix, i.e., there is no
common information between these items and therefore, cannot find that information.
That means that we find this significant test would indicate that there is common
information among the items analysed. The second instrument will measure sampling
adequacy by comparing the partial correlation between the items involved. If that ratio is
close to 1 is an indicator that the partial correlations are almost zero and therefore, the
information items is included in the set of all of them, i.e., the specifications of each item
are small in relation to all.
Since the set of items used for each aspect, trying to measure a single construct, to
establish the reliability of the measuring instrument and data collection, we calculated the
Cronbach alpha coefficient (Cronbach, 1951), through which it was determined internal
consistency of the questionnaire. This method is based on the analysis of the average
correlations among items related to one theme, from a single administration of the
questionnaire. This ratio produces values ranging from zero (0) and one (1). The closer
the value one (1), more reliable is the instrument. The criteria used for the interpretation
of the Cronbach alpha coefficient values are given by Nunnelly (1978) less than 0.6
(low), between 0.61 and 0.70 (right), ranging from 0.71 to 0, 80 (good), over 0.80 (high).
Table 1 Initial model constructs
Constructs No. items α de Cronbach

Human capital (HC) 16 .750
Structural capital (SC) 20 .901
Relational capital (RC) 10 .838
Innovativeness (CI) 6 .688
To see the effect between constructs makes use of linear regression techniques that allow
us to evaluate and compare which is the direct effect of each independent variable on the
dependent question (Jardón et al., 1997).
For the analysis process, purification and processing of data, determining factors and
impact assessment we used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS
version 15).
4.4 Análisis and results

4.4.1 Human capital
Factorial analysis of principal components showed that the 16 initial variables are
explained in 53.277% by three common factors obtained from Varimax rotation with
Kaiser normalisation converged in five interactions. The KMO indicates a reasonable
correlation between the items (KMO = 0.710) and the test of Bartlett’s has an associated
level of significance of 0.000 which leads to the rejection of the hypothesis that the
correlation matrix is the identity matrix (p < 0, 01), then there is a correlation between
some variables. Both tests allow the continuation of factor analysis. Have been set three
indices. The results are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Human capital component matrix
Component
1 2 3
Generally, employees are limited to perform tasks showing little .028 –.193 –.722
motivation to change
Our employees have many skills to the activities performed .098 .711 –.023
The company did not penalise innovation errors committed by .105 –.192 .720
employees
Our highly trained employees are specialised for the task or function .116 .762 –.034
they perform in the company
Our employees are very talented .151 .730 .166
Our employees are considered the best in our industry by training .222 .694 –.016
Whether individuals leave the company would have lost creativity .228 –.453 .292
problems
The innovative attitude of our company is the determinant of the .364 .609 .076
satisfaction of our employees with the company
Much of the value of our organisation depends on the innovative .585 .200 .181
attitude of our employees
Our directors are working to influence people to be committed .622 .389 –.021
voluntarily and apply their initiative for innovation
The employees of our company contribute to creative solutions, new .661 .231 .332
ways of doing things and work performance
Innovation and try to change things is a basic principle of our .741 .002 .076
company
Innovation and try to change things is a basic principle of our .741 .002 .076
company
Our directors like change .757 –.001 –.370
Our company facilitates the emergence of new ideas and .758 .047 .388
development of the inventive
Our executives show great willingness to innovate .760 .281 –.266
4.4.2 Structural capital

Factorial analysis of principal components set that the 20 initial variables are explained in
55.812% for three common factors obtained from Varimax rotation with Kaiser
normalisation converged in eight interactions. The KMO indicates a reasonable
Table 3 Structural capital component matrix
Component
1 2 3
Our employees trust the organisation .823 .058 .197
Our partners rely on the company’s functional directors .797 .201 .057
There is a high degree of trust between the people of our company .758 .220 .018
Our employees trust the people who make strategic decisions .681 .127 .172
Our company has a work environment that encourages the active .599 .459 .051
participation of people in the company’s innovation
All employees are viewed as ‘peers’ .592 .225 .242
Our employees are hired and trained to perform a specific task in a .563 .045 .003
specific department.
I see our company as innovative, new experiments will and courage .521 .062 .335
to take risks
Most business decisions must be approved by senior management .513 –.287 .411
We managed to extract value from the innovation process .497 .295 .474
Consciously, unconsciously, the culture of our company is a .345 .245 .161
reflection of the leader, or manager
Our employees make innovative suggestions .083 .810 .257
There are groups of improvements that facilitate business innovation –.064 .691 .357
Our employees are open to reveal their true thoughts and ideas and .310 .672 .053
innovative solutions through formal and informal interactions with
other members
Our employees enjoy participating in creative discussions .352 .655 .022
The suggestions made by employees are mostly implemented .150 .654 .295
We use detailed descriptions of the work (job descriptions), –.064 .307 .821
procedures and policies to guide the actions of employees
In our company there is innovation-oriented department (R&D, .216 .090 .710
quality, or other)
Our company has a set of processes and procedures focused on .386 .313 .663
promoting learning and innovation
Our company has a good collection system and implementation of .162 .466 .611
new ideas
4.4.3 Relational capital

Factorial analysis of principal components set that the ten initial variables are explained
in 64,075% for three common factors obtained from Varimax rotation with Kaiser
normalisation converged in seven interactions. The KMO indicates a reasonable
Table 4 Relational capital component matrix
Component
1 2 3
Consciously, unconsciously, the culture of our company is a .345 .245 .161
reflection of the leader, or manager
I see our company as innovative, new experiments will and courage .521 .062 .335
to take risks
Our company has a work environment that encourages the active .599 .459 .051
participation of people in the company’s innovation
There is a high degree of trust between the people of our company .758 .220 .018
All employees are viewed as ‘peers’ .592 .225 .242
Our employees are open to reveal their true thoughts and ideas and .310 .672 .053
innovative solutions through formal and informal interactions with
other members
Our employees enjoy participating in creative discussions .352 .655 .022
Our employees trust the people who make strategic decisions .681 .127 .172
Our partners rely on the company’s functional directors .797 .201 .057
Our employees trust the organisation .823 .058 .197
There are groups of improvements that facilitate business innovation –.064 .691 .357
Our employees make innovative suggestions .083 .810 .257
The suggestions made by employees are mostly implemented .150 .654 .295
In our company there is innovation-oriented department (R&D, .216 .090 .710
quality, or other)
We managed to extract value from the innovation process .497 .295 .474
Our company has a set of processes and procedures focused on .386 .313 .663
promoting learning and innovation
Our company has a good collection system and implementation of .162 .466 .611
new ideas
We use detailed descriptions of the work (job descriptions), –.064 .307 .821
procedures and policies to guide the actions of employees
Most business decisions must be approved by senior management .513 –.287 .411
Our employees are hired and trained to perform a specific task in a .563 .045 .003
specific department
4.4.4 Innovativeness
We obtained two factors represent the ability to innovate. The factor analysis indicates a
reasonable correlation between the variables included (KMO = 0.536). The test of
Bartlett’s sphericity is associated with a significance level of 0.000, from which it follows
that there is a correlation between some variables. Both tests allow the continuation of
factor analysis. The component matrix shows that the six initial items are explained in
67.562% for two common factors, obtained through a rotation Varimax with Kaiser
normalisation converged in three interactions.
Table 5 Innovativeness component matrix
Component
1 2
Our company introduce many innovations in management or administration of .916 .005
significant importance
We introduce our company important management innovations that would .858 –.001
improve the profits of the enterprise
Our company introduced many innovations in the product market of –.162 .768
The importance of new products in total sales has increased substantially in –.016 .738
recent years
Our company developed and introduced many innovations in the production .474 .701
process of significant importance
Introduced process innovations were critical to reducing costs or other .491 .600
improvements
We verify a discrepancy between the initial group of items and the resultant principal
components factor analysis Table 6.
Table 6 Construct analysis
Var. acum.
Constructs KMO Bartlett’s test
Expl. (%)
Human capital Formation and 53.277 0.710 Chi2 = 429.703 Sig. 0.000
(CH) knowledge creation
Innovative attitude
Incentive to
innovate
Structural Innovative Culture 55,812 .759 Chi2 = 701,727 Sig. 0.000
capital (SC)
Trust
Creation and
Knowledge
Development
Relational Networks of 64,075 .726 Chi2 = 249,279 Sig. 0.000
capital (RC) Collaboration
Clients
Competitors
Alliance
Innovativeness Product and process 67,562 0.536 Chi2 = 150,872 Sig. 0.000
(INN) innovativeness
Management
innovativeness
5 Results
We did a regression with all variables of IC, selecting the B’s with values greater than
0.200 demonstrating the existence of robust relationships between the constructs. Verify
different behaviour for product, process and management innovativeness.
Table 7 Regression matrix: management innovativeness
Unstandardised Standardised
Model coefficients coefficients t Sig.
B Std. error Beta
2 Innovative culture .378 .107 .378 3,529 .001
Creation and .315 .107 .315 2,940 .005
knowledge
development
Considering the results obtained with the multiple linear regression analysis, we note that
structural capital is only related with the management innovativeness. We proceed with
the analysis of the relationship between aspects of human and relational capital and the
product and process innovativeness.
Table 8 Regression matrix: product process innovativeness
Unstandardised Standardised
Model coefficients coefficients t Sig.
B Std. error Beta
4 Clients .399 .097 .399 4,096 .000
Networks of .288 .098 .288 2,931 .005
collaboration
Incentive to .320 .089 .320 3,611 .001
innovate
Innovative attitude .216 .106 .216 2,034 .046
Different innovative capabilities require a differentiated IC element. There are two

distinct groups of variables, those associated with products and processes innovativeness
and those associated with Management innovativeness.
Given this dichotomy from here we analyse separately the two innovative capacities.
We will treat management innovativeness and product and process innovativeness in two
separate blocks.
5.1 Relation between IC and management innovativeness

Considering the results obtained with the multiple linear regression analysis, we note that
only the structural capital is related to the management innovativeness. We proceed with
the analysis of the relationship between the structural capital dimensions (innovative
culture, creation and knowledge development, and trust) and the management
innovativeness. The results obtained with the regression indicate that the management
innovativeness is positively and significantly influenced by the innovative culture (.378,
with sig. 0.001) and the creation and knowledge development (0.315 with sig. 0.005). It
is the following model:
CI _ Mannag = 0.378* CE _ Innovcult + 0.315* CE _ CrKnDev + ε ri
where
CI_Mannag management innovativeness
SC_Innovcult structural capital: innovative culture
SC_CrKnDev structural capital: creation and knowledge development.
5.2 Relation between IC and product-process innovativeness

We observed that the product process innovativeness is directly related to some
dimensions of human capital and relational capital:
CI _ PROD _ PROC = 0.399*CR _ CLIENTS + 0.288*CR _ NetCol + 0.320*CH _ INCENT
+0.216 * CH _ ATITUD + ε ri
where
CI_Prod_Proc product and process innovativeness
RC_Clients relational capital-clients
RC-NetCol relational capital- networks of collaboration
HC_INCENT human capital-incentive to innovate
HC_ATITUD human capital-innovative attitude.
Relational capital variables with significant and positive effect on the product process
innovativeness are the clients (0.399 ff. 0.000) and networks of collaboration (0.288 ff.
0.005). Human capital variables with equal positive and significant effect on the products
and processes innovativeness are the incentives to innovate (0.320 with sig. 0.001) and
the innovative attitude (0.216 with sig. 0.046).
Before proceeding with our analysis, we present, below, in graphic form, the
conclusions reached in this section.
As expected in our first hypothesis (H1) human capital is associated with the
innovativeness of the company; in particular we conclude that human capital has an
important role in the product-process innovativeness. In line with the theory that
considers the human capital as the most important component of IC, in the perspective of
IC, inputs to the process of knowledge creation are provided by the human capital
(Boisot, 2002). But we concluded oppositely on the management innovativeness, as the
human capital do not appear (at least directly) related with this type of innovativeness.
These results (nevertheless) are consistent with some academics, such as Stewart (1998)
for whom human capital has no significant direct impact on business performance
because it needs the other intellectual components, as the structural and relational capital
to be processed. Also, Bontis (1998) and Cabrita (2008) found no significant direct
relationship between human capital and business performance.
Figure 2 Model (see online version for colours)
In our study, we found no direct link between the dimension of the human capital
‘formation and knowledge creation’, with any innovative capacities considered. These
dimension might be related only indirectly (it is an investigation to be done). This result
is surprising because the formation is one of the factors most considered in the literature
concerning the knowledge assets management. As regards Nonala and Takeuchi (1995)
that say that knowledge is the essence of innovation, and training is a way to renew and
update the knowledge. The innovative process of creating or adopting innovations is
inseparable from human creativity, more in a changing market, knowledge and skills of
the employees are very important in the development of new products and services
(Greenley and Foxall, 1998). This result may be due to the way the construct was built; it
was based on the existence and importance of trained workers. This general form of
addressing the training can be the trigger for this result.
Our results come in line with the idea that the innovative attitude of the company can
play an important role in employee satisfaction and that companies that have, as a basic
principle, innovation and try to change things are more innovative (Mouritsen et al.,
2001), on the contrary, the companies in which employees show little innovative thinking
and simply execute tasks, showing little motivation to change, are less innovative
(Cabrita and Bontis, 2008; Osterloh and Frey, 2000).
Besides the importance of the innovative attitude of the company is the innovative
attitude of the staff. Much of the value of a company depends on the innovative attitude
of his colleagues, this can be enhanced through financial incentives (Osterloh and Frey,
2000).
Also innovation incentives are an important contribution to the product-process
innovativeness. It is possible to enrich the work ambient and thereby encourage creativity
and learning. The company that facilitates the emergence of new ideas and inventive
development (IADE, 2003), does not penalise innovation errors, committed by
employees, and encourages employees to find creative solutions, new ways of doing
things and work performance (Mouritsen et al., 2001; Ravichandran, 2000) has more
innovativeness.
We also validated our second hypothesis H2 we observed that the structural capital
is directly related to the management innovativeness, these results are validate by
theoretical arguments (Davenport et al., 2003) that consider that is the company that turns
knowledge into performance. Businesses should support the performance of employees
through their infrastructure, information systems, routines, culture and trust, facilitating
the dissemination of knowledge. Companies must develop a culture that encourages and
promotes the retention of human capital (Cabrita and Bontis, 2008). The relationship
between structural capital and the innovativeness was also contrasted by Subramaniam
and Youndt (2005) (organisational capital in their case) and they verify the existence of a
significant relationship with incremental innovation capacity (not all types of innovative
capacity.)
In our study, we found no direct relationship between trust and any innovative
capacities considered. This result is inconsistent with the position of different authors,
who consider trust as a basic condition for the efficiency of the processes of creation and
knowledge transfer (Adler and Kwon, 2002; Ford, 2001), because it facilitates
cooperation and creates operational efficiency of work teams (Galdford and Drapeau,
2003).
The creation and knowledge development appears directly correlated with the
management innovativeness. To have the knowledge to contribute to sustainable
competitive advantages of the company, this will have to be transferred between
divisions, teams and partners in order to be useful in the development of products and
services (Noe et al., 2003). For instance, Andreou and Boone (2002) argue that
investment in ICT, by itself, has no impact on business performance, other factors such as
cultural, leadership styles and employee competence are crucial to business success. In
our case, we found that the management innovativeness is significantly explained by the
innovative culture, exposed the existence of a set of processes and procedures, with
detailed descriptions of tasks, focusing on promoting learning and innovation and also a
good collection system and implementation of innovations, as innovation-oriented
department. Consistent with Hii and Neely (2000) they concluded that there is a strong
correlation between innovative Culture and innovation performance. A corporate culture
that encourages risk and tolerates failure supports business innovation (Wan et al., 2005).
We also validate our hypothesis H3, noting that the relational capital is directly
related with the product-process innovativeness. The dimensions collaboration networks
and clients are directly related to the innovative capacity. The results obtained may reveal
the specificities of the automotive sector, which through its organisation and management
enhance collaboration between vehicle manufacturers, allies and suppliers to develop
components, modules and solutions.
We verified that the construct clients are positively and significantly correlated with
the product-process innovativeness. In our study, we verified an important orientation for
the customer. Heiens (2000) finds that firms choose, usually, a customer orientation when
they are in growth markets. Neither Cabrita and Bontis (2008), regarding the Portuguese
banks, nor our study agree with this observation. Hii and Nelly (2000) did not found, in
its investigation, support that the networks influence the innovative performance of the
company.
In our study, we found no direct relationship between alliances with competitors with
any innovative capacities considered. So there is no direct relationship between the
contributions from partnerships with competitors and the resulting innovativeness.
Cabrita and Bontis (2008) also found a relationship between relational capital and
organisational performance, while concluding that the bank does not see their competitors
a source of innovation.
To sum up, the three research hypotheses were validated. We can summarily
conclude that our study supports that IC influences the innovativeness of the company
although there are some nuances worth noting. An important result achieved is that we
find a dichotomy between the innovative capacities. This dichotomy is very relevant for
our finds and conclusions.
Table 9 Hypothesis test
Situation
Hypothesis Management Product-process
innovativeness innovativeness
H1: Human capital is positively related with the Rejected Accepted
H2: Structural capital is positively related with the Accepted Rejected
H3: Relational capital is positively related with the Rejected Accepted
6 Conclusions
In this study, we identify theoretical implications of our study, mainly in two research
areas: the IC and Innovation literature. For the literature of IC, the major contribution is
that we found that the human, structural and relational dimensions of IC are relevant for
the innovativeness of the company, but differently. The human and structural capital
influences the product-process innovativeness and the structural capital influences the
management innovativeness.
As the IC is accepted as strategic factors that include resources, skills and capabilities
that act and interact to create value, human capital use to be considered a central element
of the company. Some authors suggest that human capital is the central element of IC
(Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Bontis, 1998; Bontis et al., 1999; Bontis and Girardi,
2000; Sveiby, 1997; Stewart, 1998). In our study, we find that human capital is important
(directly) only for the product-process innovativeness of the company.
As Hayton (2005), that analysed a fairly comprehensive literature associated with the
influence of human capital (between the members of senior management) of the
companies and the respective innovative capacity and concluded that the cognitive
resources (skills) and values of the management team have a significant influence on the
company’s strategic decisions; we found that the innovative attitude (part of it centred on
the manager attitude) has an important role on the product-process innovativeness.
We did not found a positive and direct relation between the ‘formation and
knowledge creation’; dimension of the human capital; so we propose that future
researches follow Shipton et al. (2005) findings, they had confirm empirically that the
oriented development of human capital has a positive impact on the innovation results,
the authors conclude that people management on the way to enhance their capacity to
building, transfer and deploy knowledge has a positive impact on the innovation ability.
The second contribution is to the innovation literature and concerns the several
innovative capabilities found in this study. First, we saw that the management
innovativeness and the product-process innovativeness are differentiated which
consequently require different knowledge. Furthermore, we saw that the product-process
innovativeness are coincident and refer to the same phenomenon. We found that a new
product innovation needs a new process, which justifies that the product process
innovativeness represents a same capacity. So, there is a need to adjust the production
process of a product innovation. It means that these two types of innovation are
intrinsically related.
The developed model validated the research problem and led to the following general
conclusions:
• The first conclusion is that the IC influences the innovativeness of the companies
producing components for the automotive sector within the European region of
Galicia and Northern Portugal.
• The second conclusion confirms that the elements of IC influence the innovative
capacity differently. This is the greatest contribution of this work for theory and
management. We found that the products-processes innovation is influenced directly
and on an important way by the human capital and relational capital and that the
Management innovativeness is influenced positively and directly by structural
capital.
To sum up, the results of our study helps close the gap between what we know and what
we need to know about the effects of human capital on firm innovativeness and permits
to support partly our H1. We did not found a direct relation of human capital and
management innovativeness.
A final integrative contribution refers to the identification of significant differences in
the dimensions of IC that influence the different innovative capacities. This contribution
attempts to answer a common criticism addressed to studies focusing on the
innovativeness, referring to the lack of analysis of the interrelationships between different
variables within the organisation (Ravichandran, 2000).
This research also contributes on the management level. Our first contribution to the
management level consists on the verification of the importance of IC on the
innovativeness of companies producing components for the automotive sector,
particularly for those located in Galicia and northern Portugal. Our research indicates that
companies investing in human capital will get more innovation in products and processes.
This investment does not necessarily have to be a financial investment; the company can
invest in targeted efforts to enhance the innovative attitude of its employees, for example,
by supporting their creativity.
Some companies had developed internal ideas management systems involving all
employees in the process of generating and implementing new business ideas. One
example is the company SAG (trade and distribution of automotive sector in Portugal)
that has implemented a set of methodologies aimed to generate and select ideas through a
process of dynamic workshops, resulting in the identification of new business areas and
opportunities for the group.
There is, additionally, the ‘marketplace of ideas’ which is a platform developed with
the aim to evaluate and commercialise ideas. This allows the involvement of all company
employees in the process of generating and evaluating ideas.
The directors may also strive to have an innovative attitude, risking and enhancing or
stimulating the innovative attitude of the worker. The focus of direction in short-term
management, focusing on operations, is a major obstacle to innovation. You will need
your involvement and willingness to trigger and encourage innovation in the enterprise.
Another important aspect is the formation (in its formal ‘informal’ aspect). The first
one results of a training plan with a preset goal that is formalised. In the second one, is
more a process of creation and development of knowledge based on specific actions to
increase knowledge informally, for example, through sharing of experience and
dissemination of experiences.
The relational capital is also very relevant to the product process innovativeness.
Considering the context in study, companies that collaborate in working networks and
customers can get useful results in terms of the ability to create or adopt successful
product innovations.
We also found that the knowledge derived from joint work with competitors is
important for the innovativeness of these companies. This last consideration might be
idiosyncratic to the sector in study because the organisation is based on the enhancement
of joint developments by collaborating with customers, employees and competitors.
Some limitations of this study must be pointed, such as the disadvantage of measuring
innovation with a survey is that respondents can only give ‘rough estimates’ of the
percentages used to measure innovation output, so, the answers can be affected by
subjectivity. However, this is especially a problem when the comparison is made among
firms working in different sectors. In this study, we only compare the innovative
performance of firms in the same industry and therefore, our results are less likely to be
affected by this.
Further study should be done in two senses: to provide further evidence of our
conclusions testing our model in different sectors or doing a multi-sector test. Even more,
further tests of our model, concerning the liaisons not found such as the relation between
human capital and management innovation should be done. In the same line, following
the proposal of Linzalone (2008) more research should be done on the role that capital
intellectual play in different stages of the new products development process, as little is
known about this relationship.
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Annex
Questionnaire
Human capital
• Generally, employees are limited to perform tasks showing little motivation to
change
• Our employees have many skills to the activities performed
• The company did not penalise innovation errors committed by employees
• Our highly trained employees are specialised for the task or function they perform in
the company
• Our employees are very talented
• Our employees are considered the best in our industry by training
• Whether individuals leave the company would have lost creativity problems
• The innovative attitude of our company is the determinant of the satisfaction of our
employees with the company
• Much of the value of our organisation depends on the innovative attitude of our
employees
• Our directors are working to influence people to be committed voluntarily and apply
their initiative for innovation
• The employees of our company contribute to creative solutions, new ways of doing
things and work performance
• Innovation and try to change things is a basic principle of our company
• Our directors like change
• Our company facilitates the emergence of new ideas and development of the
inventive
• Our executives show great willingness to innovate
Structural capital
• Our employees trust the organisation
• Our partners rely on the company’s functional directors
• There is a high degree of trust between the people of our company
• Our employees trust the people who make strategic decisions
• Our company has a work environment that encourages the active participation of
people in the company’s innovation
• All employees are viewed as ‘peers’
• Our employees are hired and trained to perform a specific task in a specific
department.
• I see our company as innovative, new experiments will and courage to take risks
• Most business decisions must be approved by senior management
• We managed to extract value from the innovation process
• Consciously, unconsciously, the culture of our company is a reflection of the leader,
or manager
• Our employees make innovative suggestions
• There are groups of improvements that facilitate business innovation
• Our employees are open to reveal their true thoughts and ideas and innovative
solutions through formal and informal interactions with other members
• Our employees enjoy participating in creative discussions
• The suggestions made by employees are mostly implemented
• We use detailed descriptions of the work (job descriptions), procedures and policies
to guide the actions of employees
• In our company there is innovation-oriented department (R&D, quality, or other)
• Our company has a set of processes and procedures focused on promoting learning
and innovation
• Our company has a good collection system and implementation of new ideas
Relational capital
• Consciously, unconsciously, the culture of our company is a reflection of the leader,
or manager
• I see our company as innovative, new experiments will and courage to take risks
• Our company has a work environment that encourages the active participation of
people in the company’s innovation
• There is a high degree of trust between the people of our company
• All employees are viewed as ‘peers’
• Our employees are open to reveal their true thoughts and ideas and innovative
solutions through formal and informal interactions with other members
• Our employees enjoy participating in creative discussions
• Our employees trust the people who make strategic decisions
• Our partners rely on the company’s functional directors
• Our employees trust the organisation
• There are groups of improvements that facilitate business innovation
• Our employees make innovative suggestions

• The suggestions made by employees are mostly implemented
• In our company there is innovation-oriented department (R&D, quality, or other)
• We managed to extract value from the innovation process
• Our company has a set of processes and procedures focused on promoting learning
and innovation
• Our company has a good collection system and implementation of new ideas
• We use detailed descriptions of the work (job descriptions), procedures and policies
to guide the actions of employees
• Most business decisions must be approved by senior management
• Our employees are hired and trained to perform a specific task in a specific
department.
Innovativeness
• Our company introduces many innovations in management or administration of
• We introduce our company important management innovations that would improve
the profits of the enterprise
• Our company introduced many innovations in the product market of significant
importance
• The importance of new products in total sales has increased substantially in recent
years
• Our company developed and introduced many innovations in the production process
of significant importance
• Introduced process innovations were critical to reducing costs or other improvements

The Main Intellectual Capital Components

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The Main Intellectual Capital Components

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Int. J. Transitions and Innovation Systems, Vol. 1, No.

The main intellectual capital components that are

Pedro Figueroa Dorrego

Carlos Mª. Fernandez-Jardon

Keywords: intellectual capital; IC; innovativeness; human capital; structural

Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Santos-Rodrigues, H.,

Biographical notes: Helena Santos-Rodrigues is the 2011 winner of the

Pedro Figueroa Dorrego is a Doctor in Economics and Titular Professor of

We are moving towards a knowledge-based economy where intangible assets and

organisational intelligence, which is represented by their information and

2.1 Intellectual capital

• one root centred on information and knowledge and it management

2.1.1 Human capital

2.1.2 Structural capital

2.1.3 Relational capital

4.1 Sample and data collection

When we analyse the size of the companies surveyed, measured in number of

Both IC components and innovativeness have been regarded as multidimensional

• ‘incentive to innovativeness’ (Shelton et al., 2005; Ravichandran, 2000; IADE-CIC,

• ‘Culture of innovation’, reflects the existence of an innovation-oriented department

• ‘Creation and knowledge development’, includes institutional support to the creation

• ‘Networks of collaboration represent the formal or informal input from customers,

• ‘Clients’, is particularly focused on the contributions and importance of customers

• ‘Competitors alliances’, reflects the importance and structure of partnership

4.3 Data analysis

Constructs No. items α de Cronbach

4.4 Análisis and results

4.4.2 Structural capital

Table 3 Structural capital component matrix

4.4.3 Relational capital

Table 4 Relational capital component matrix

Table 5 Innovativeness component matrix

Different innovative capabilities require a differentiated IC element. There are two

5.1 Relation between IC and management innovativeness

5.2 Relation between IC and product-process innovativeness

Figure 2 Model (see online version for colours)

• Our employees make innovative suggestions

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