By Leif Edvinsson Professor of Intellectual Capital University of Lund Lund, Sweden In a marketplace, characterized by the growing importance of intangibles and knowledge, as we have not only in Europe today, it has become more and more evident how important knowledge management and Intellectual Capital manage ment has become. Some of us who started this knowledge exploration journeys some decades ago could perhaps realize how quickly this theme should become so important. Today it is on almost every executive''s agenda. The timing, the context and the comprehensive content of this second edition could not have been better. In this second edition the authors have extended their overview with case studies and facts that confirm what we intuitively knew. Knowledge and intangibles are a top strategic issue. It is vital for an organization if it wants to be competitive, sus tainable and profitable. The solid overview and the holistic review and testing of the theories with real cases, gives the reader a lot of facts and models of how man agement could invest in this area with very good return, in one case with a return of investment of 200 % in one year! It is a very extensive work on the growing field of knowledge management. In its extension guidelines and emerging standards are already visible, as e. g. the guide lines from the Danish government on IC reporting or of the Norwegian Associa tion of Financial Analysts.
