eBusiness

Intellectual capital is a term with various definitions in different theories of management and economics. Accordingly, its only truly neutral definition is as a debate over economic “intangibles”. Ambiguous combinations of human capital, instructional capital and individual capital employed in productive enterprise are usually what is meant by the term, when it is used to actually refer to a capital asset whose yield is intellectual property rights.

Such use is rare, however, and the term rarely or never appears in accounting proper - it refers to a debate, and to the assumed capital base that creates intellectual property, rather than an auditable style of capital.

Perhaps due to their industry focus, the term “intellectual capital” is employed mostly by theorists in information technology, innovation research, technology transfer and other fields concerned primarily with technology, standards, and venture capital. It was particularly prevalent in 1995-2000 as theories proliferated to explain the “dotcom boom” and high valuations.