Intellectual capital practices: a four‐region comparative study

Purpose – This paper aims to present the findings of an empirical study that examines and compares the competitive impact of intellectual capital on enterprise performance in small innovative enterprises (SIEs) situated in four geographical regions: St Petersburg in the Russian Federation, the Black Forest region of Germany, the “Medicon Valley”, situated between Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmo in Sweden, and Silicon Valley in the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The research seeks to investigate potential differences in intellectual capital practices across the four regions while comparing the impact of these relative to the firm's external factors (socio‐political, technological, and economic) for enterprise performance. To that end, the research reported builds on and extends earlier research focused on Russian SIEs. Findings – The research findings suggest that intellectual capital practices and their impact on enterprise performance are more similar than different across the regions studied, and that the firms' intellectual capital constitutes the more important determinant of enterprise performance relative to external factors. This does not preclude differences in intellectual capital practices between the regions studied. These differences are marginal, however, and reflect socio‐economic and national cultural factors unique to those regions investigated. Research limitations/implications – The key questions of the research address the relative impact of intellectual capital practices (internal factors) and prevailing socio‐political, economic, and technological factors on the performance of small innovative enterprises. The work presents an extended sample size of Russian companies (also from St Petersburg) and an extension of the earlier study to include the three additional geographic regions. The notion of the knowledge‐based theory of the firm forms the conceptual basis of the framework that is developed to relate intellectual capital ( human capital and structural capital) and key external factors ( socio‐political , economic and technological ) to enterprise performance in SIEs. Practical implications – The study compares the perceived importance of intellectual capital and external environmental factors for enterprise competitiveness of companies in the four regions – Russia, Germany, Denmark, and the USA. The research provides evidence that intellectual capital is perceived to be the most important factor driving competitive performance in all the regions. Originality/value – Similar to the research reported in an earlier paper by the same authors, the paper represents work in progress. As such, the outcomes and conclusions reported should be viewed as preliminary findings.