Making (In)Visible : A Triangulation of an Australia Public Sector Organisation's Intellectual Capital Practices

By analysing the organsiation's management challenges and activities from an IC perspective, the research study made visible the organisation's invisible sources of value creation and identified inconsistencies in the enactment of knowledge resources. The ICVC framework proved particularly beneficial in that it facilitated the identification of gaps between the organisations' internal IC activities and external IC reporting practices and between the organisation's 'perceived importance' of IC and the 'actual management' of IC. To senior management at the case study organisation, the research project was useful in that it introduced a new perspective from which to understand the organisation, enabling management to visualise the organisation's knowledge resources and how these contribute to organisational value creation.The article is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews contemporary perspectives on and definitions of IC and knowledge management. Section 3 provides a brief review of current activities and trends in the field of IC, including the evolution of IC models and research techniques. Section 4 introduces the client organisation. Section 5 outlines the ICVC model and research processes deployed to facilitate the triangulation of the case study organisation's ICMMR practices, including its use, relevance and impacts. Section 6 provides an overview of the research findings at the client organisation focusing on the gaps between the organisations' internal IC activities and exteinal IC reporting practices and* between the organisation's 'perceived importance' of IC versus the 'actual management' of IC. Section 7 comments on the future prospects of the field of ICMMR in relation to organisational value creation, accounting standards and financial reporting