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Can measuring IC thwart KM initiatives?


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Posted by Rob Patzig on February 27, 1998 at 21:31:44:


I've been rereading Thomas Stewart's Intellectual Capital and a
number of articles about measuring and valuing intellectual capital lately. 
As a result I've begun to wonder if unwary organizations might not do themselves
more harm then good when they attempt to measure the value of their intellectual
capital, though I've never seen anything about this in the extant literature. 
I'd like to know other's thoughts about this.

The hypothetical situation that got me thinking about this is as follows. 
Traditionally, and in most organizations today, capital is considered a
"hard asset" like computers, electricity, and steel.  Even though
most of us recognize that today's most valuable assets are, like knowledge,
intangible at best, once these intangibles are measured, doesn't that measurement
koncretize (Wolfgang Iser's word) or make tangible the intangible,
at least to some extent?  If that happens it is possible that the
orgs IC will be seen as just another one of the hard assets of the organization. 
If and when that happens, my guess is that the first thing that would happen
is that the containers of knowledge, people, would become seen as hard
assets as well, which means that they are readily replaceable, like computers.

Since such an occurance would prove antithetical to any growth as a
learning organization, to KM initiatives, and to further growth of IC,
are there methods of measurement that can circumvent such a possibility
or is this just a risk that we have to live with?

Perhaps there is no threat that such a thing would occur, but it seems
likely to happen at some point in organizations that don't fully recognize
the complixity of real knowledge management.

Rob




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