Drivers for Corporate Competitiveness. Intellectual Capital and Related Intangible Assets and Intellectual Property

Essay from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, University of London, course: Intellectual Capital and Competitvness, language: English, abstract: Knowledge and competence of individuals and their recognized value for successful and sustainable economic activity is reflected in the term of intellectual capital. Companies that want to be successful and play an outstanding role in the fierce competition of global dynamic markets have to be able to continuously innovate. Competiveness more and more becomes a question of the ability to innovate; Creativeness, ideas, knowledge and competencies as well as the ability to collaborate are key factors to be competitive and therefore are important elements which have to be managed by today's corporations. One can speak of a paradigm change going away from an industrial society where classical production factors (land, labour and capital) and tangible resources mattered, where labour was seen as a cost factor. The intangible paradigm on the contrary considers labour and therefore humans and their knowledge as the most important source of innovation and value creation. In that sense intellectual capital is actually substituting the other factors of production. This essay will elaborate what intellectual capital is, what elements it consist of and why it is important for corporate competiveness.