The overlapping of national IC and innovation systems

Purpose – This paper aims to present a focus for identifying the convergence between the theory of the intellectual capital of nations and that of the National Systems of Innovation from the literature of innovation systems, with the aim of providing a more robust theoretical framework to explore the drivers of intangibles and the policies which foster competitiveness through the development of the national intellectual capital platforms. Design/methodology/approach – Selecting 28 indicators which best fit the analyzed theoretic principles and taking into account the member countries of the European Union as a sample (15) with the data taken from the IMD, a simple analysis of the seven‐year (2000‐2006) window was carried out to compare the intangibles pointed out in the two aforementioned perspectives. Findings – The homogeneity of the results using models of measurement of intellectual capital of countries with those obtained through the models of the National Systems of Innovation prove the considerable convergence between these two theoretic fields, validating the hypotheses proposed in the study. Research limitations/implications – The system provided is not an exhaustive use of all the available measures and countries. A more comprehensive practical application on more countries and indicators would be necessary to validate the model. Practical implications – The study has implications for the business, politicians and academia. The study opens new lines of research in the sense that it advocates a theoretical approximation and the integration of the abundant literature on the National Systems of Innovation as basic drivers to explain the intangibles at a macro level, their management and politics related to the maintaining and renewal of said assets of intellectual capital. Originality/value – To the best of the authors' knowledge, so far no study analyzing this convergence has been designed or published. This paper extends and adds robustness to the national IC measurement model to help policymakers and scholars.