Strategic Plan
2016 – 2020
Executive Summary
In March 2000, the European Council held a special meeting to approve a new strategic goal for the European Union (EU) in order to strengthen the knowledge-based economy. The Council proposed a strategy - the Lisbon Strategy - with a view of making, in 10 years, the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world. 10 years have passed, the world economy has changed, the decision-makers are beginning to be dominated by emerging economies and the management of intellectual capital has become a factor influencing the competitive advantage and productivity of businesses, regions and even countries. However, in most European and even world economies, the forms of management do not contemplate the principles of management of intellectual capital.
Bearing in mind this context and the need to foster the development of society that is more innovative, more sustainable, more responsible in social and environmental terms, the ICAA intends to continue to promote their mission: "to help organizations to transform intellectual capital into added value, contributing to economic and social development."
This Strategic Plan aims to present the strategic objectives of the ICAA for the period between January 2016 and December 2020.
These goals were developed based on the experience accumulated over the last 5 years of activity, the resulting learning of cooperation with other national and international institutions and the recommendations that have been submitted by various members of the advisory board and the
executive boards of ICAA that have collaborated more actively throughout the development process of the activities of ICAA.
This Strategic Plan is also supported in the guidelines of the National program “Portugal 2020" and the European program "Horizon 2020". The ICAA strategy for the period 2016-2020 can be summarized in three guidelines:
1. Promotion of the management of intellectual capital as a strategic factor of development of organizations, cities, regions and countries;
2. Research applied to intellectual capital management and knowledge management;
3. Promotion Projects and Knowledge Transfer to Academic and Business Environments.
Mission and Objectives of ICAA
ICAA is an international, non-profit association, created in Santarém - Portugal, in April 2010.
ICAA's mission is to help organizations to transform intellectual capital into added value, contributing to economic and social development.
ICAA was acknowledged as a beneficiary of the status of scientific patronage (Ministerial Order nº 4544/2015. Diário da República n.º 87/2015, Series II of 2015-05-06).
ICAA has the following objectives:
• To promote and encourage the management of organizations intellectual capital;
• To encourage the formation of business networks / clusters of organizational and integrated regional development;
• To establish partnerships with other national and international organizations;
• To support and / or promote initiatives in the form of seminars, conferences, workshops or other forms of collective reflection;
• To promote the worldwide exchange of ideas and experiences in the intellectual capital management field;
• To promote scientific research at national and international levels;
• To provide the enterprises and organizations human resources of tools to improve productivity and competitiveness;
• To contribute to the development sustainable and competitive of the economy of the countries, through the valuation of their intangible assets.
Contextualization
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a central role in the European and even the world economy, highlighting in particular the small businesses. These businesses are a key source of jobs, business dynamism and innovation.
In Portugal, the business sector also consists mainly of SMEs, particularly small businesses, with human resources, in general, showing low levels of training and having forms of management outdated and without bold strategies.
The management of intellectual capital in most Portuguese SMEs appears to be in a very early stage. Acceptance of the management of intellectual capital in Portuguese companies seems to have implied the existence of quantifiable returns that justify the investment.
On the other hand, Portuguese companies are traditionally very hierarchical, which presupposes that the introduction of intellectual capital management must have a top-down approach. The role of the leaders of each company should, therefore, be crucial, because they are the ones who will have to lead a cultural change that will allow the development of this concept.
However, as there are some good examples of highly innovative and often exporting companies using management practices that fit the best parameters of intellectual capital management, it becomes crucial to promote the use of these practices more broadly.
The use of management standards of intellectual capital at the macro level to study the cities, regions or countries is more recent than its application to companies. However, there are already some studies that demonstrate the cause-effect relationship between the management of intellectual capital, innovation, competitiveness and economic development of these units.
In Portugal, these issues are largely unknown and are not used as guidelines for decision making for the development of strategies and policies.
Even at the level of Portuguese public administration management practices, these issues are largely unknown. In the European Union, despite the scenario being more favourable in some countries, particularly in the leading countries of innovation, the scenario is quite similar.
Now, a modern, qualified and efficient public administration, able to create a favourable environment for competitiveness and reduce context costs, requires the implementation of knowledge and intellectual capital management practices that are unknown to most decision-makers and public managers.
SWOT Analysis of ICAA
The ICAA external analysis - Threats and Opportunities allows us to say that there begins to be a great awareness and global interest to the issues of knowledge management and intellectual capital management. So, an association with the mission and objectives of the ICAA fits perfectly on the world's outlook, being, for that reason, easily accepted. Proof of this are the invitations to participate in events that begin to emerge from countries as disparate as Brazil or Iran.
As threat, stands out the emergence of some associations, especially in the area of knowledge management, with a very similar mission to the ICAA's mission, but with much more financial and human resources and that, therefore, can have a greater role at European level.
As regards the internal analysis, in particular the Forces of ICAA, it is important to refer, in first place, the international recognition that ICAA has already achieved, which derives from its role as a promoter of intellectual capital management and its scientific production capacity, which is quite visible in the many established cooperation agreements and invitations to participate in projects and events.
To highlight, at national level, the wide acceptance and recognition of the potential of ICAA by the public (IAPMEI, ANI, IPQ, IPAC) and business entities.
Still in the field of Forces, we must highlight the great flexibility of the ICAA organizational structure that allows the decision-making to be very agile.
Finally, in terms of international image, ICAA has built a very strong and sustained image in the promotion of intellectual capital management, which greatly contributes to its excellent reputation in the various areas in which collaborates.
In turn, in the field of the Weaknesses of the ICAA, it should be noted the current lack of financial resources, which influences the research and the realization of other activities, the participation in events and projects and the recruitment of human resources that can support the activities of ICAA.
Strategic Initiatives
Considering the three guidelines of the ICAA strategy defined in the Executive Summary, we intend to develop the strategic initiatives described below, that fall within the mission and the objectives of ICAA.
1. Promotion of intellectual capital management as a strategic factor of development of organizations, cities, regions and countries
The promotion of intellectual capital as a strategic development factor, requires, first, the raise of awareness of the issue and the clarification of "what is the management of intellectual capital" and "what is knowledge management." The goal of this raise of awareness is to reduce the level of confusion that still remains between knowledge, intellectual capital, intellect and intellectual property. At the same time, it aims to attract the interest of companies for intellectual capital management practices. At the level of educational and research institutions, the promotion of intellectual capital management aims to raise awareness of the need and introducing the programs of Curricular Units courses or course content that address the issues of knowledge management and intellectual capital management. At the same time, it is intended to stimulate quality research in these areas.
For this, in the context of GFIC - Global Forum of Intellectual Capital, ICAA intends to carry out in Portugal, in 2016, five workshops for companies/organizations, aiming to raise awareness and clarify the importance of this topic in a competitive and value creator management process.
These workshops will have the institutional support of IAPMEI - Public Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation.
At the level of teaching / research institutions and under the Institutional Protocols that the ICAA has with different organizations in 2016, is intended to accomplish, 5 promotion seminars and dissemination of thematic
knowledge management and intellectual capital management.
In the following years, until 2020, these workshops will be repeated, with the thematics broadened to the development of the implementation of intellectual capital management, particularly in some clusters of the Portuguese economy.
In order to continue to disseminate and promote the intellectual capital and, particularly research conducted in ICAA, in 2016 we intend to present papers in the following conferences:
A. KM Conference 2016 - The International Institute for Applied Knowledge Management (IIAKM)
22 - 25 June - ISEG – Lisbon - Portugal
http://iiakm.org/conference/
B. TAKE 2016
06 – 08 July – Aveiro University – Aveiro – Portugal
https://websummit.net/
E. CIKI 2016 - Congreso Internacional de Conocimiento e Innovación
10 - 11 November – Bogota – Colombia
http://www.congresociki.org/
Continuing this process of disseminating and promoting the management of intellectual capital, the ICAA intends to participate annually in at least 2 representative international conferences, among which are the following: ECIC - European Conference on Intellectual Capital; ECKM - European Conference on Knowledge Management; IFKAD - International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics, International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning. In 2017, ICAA intends to organize, in Portugal, the CIKI 2017 - International Conference on Knowledge and Innovation, along with the GFIC - Global Forum of Intellectual Capital. This international conference will be held in partnership with the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil and with The Organización Universitaria Interamericana.
Still, in 2017, ICAA intends to actively participate in the 9th European Conference on Intellectual Capital - ECIC 2017, to be held at ISCTE - IUL, Lisbon.
In the following years, we intend to continue to hold the Global Forum of Intellectual Capital on different themes and in different contexts. Note that there are already invitations to internationalize this conference.
As a way of developing skills in the area of good management practices of intellectual capital, ICAA intends to start in 2016, a set of online training short courses that will allow learning about the themes of knowledge
management and intellectual capital management. These courses, initially in Portuguese, will be, in a second-stage, translated to Spanish to be disseminated in Latin America by the Organización Universitaria Interamericana, a partner of ICAA. Also, they can be made in other languages to be broadcasted in other countries.
At the education level, the ICAA intends to start in 2017, the first edition of the Post-graduation in Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital. This Post graduation will be held in partnership with an educational institution.
2.
Research applied to intellectual capital management and
knowledge management
Continuing the work that has been made by ICLab - Research Centre for Intellectual Capital, the ICAA intends to continue to develop by 2020, the following research projects.
Other projects may be introduced in accordance with the needs identified by the ICLab Scientific Board or in the course of initiatives proposed by other ICAA partners and validated by the same Scientific Board.
a) Intellectual Capital Management Scoring Models
At a time when the world economy is in crisis due to the financial collapse of many companies, traditional models of financial evaluation of these companies are beginning to be questioned.
Intellectual capital, as a driver of organizational innovation, is gradually becoming a differentiating factor and competitive advantage generator.
The ability to manage intellectual capital is, thus, a key element for assessing the potential of sustainable innovation.
Therefore, it is necessary to create reliable and affordable tools in this field.
The aim of this research project is the development of Scoring Systems (for companies, cities, regions and countries) that would allow to
obtain the classification of the evaluated units, compared with reference standards and compared to each other.
b) Support System for the Intellectual Capital Development of Cities, Regions and Countries
This research project, based on the mapping and monitoring of intellectual capital of cities, regions and countries intends the creation of an observatory for intellectual capital. This observatory will act as a forecast model that will enable territorial units to know their position in terms of intellectual capital management.
The system could support the strategic decision-making of economic and political decision makers.
c) The Effect of Green Intellectual Capital Management in the Competitiveness of Companies
The "Green Intellectual Capital" assumes that social and environmental criteria are the basis of the management processes of the intellectual capital of the companies, this is, making human capital, structural capital and relational capital greener, guiding the production of goods and services to more environmentally friendly productions, while
companies. These studies demonstrate that companies, who care to use more environmentally friendly management practices, influencing their human capital for the use of these practices, are also the most innovative companies in terms of products and "green" processes, generating wealth and preserving the ecosystem for future generations.
The aim of this research project is to deepen the knowledge we have of this cause-effect relationship, whose present and future importance is unquestionable.
d) Knowledge Management and Organizational Development
The interest in knowledge management lies in the fact that it is becoming the nerve system of organizations because it is given priority to intangible rather than tangible.
It is this knowledge that, in the current context, creates innovation, able to generate competitive advantages that allow companies the internationalization. Likewise, it is this knowledge that enables governments to make better management of the resources they have available and to create wealth that allows citizens to have better economic and social conditions.
The objective of this project is to create a system of knowledge transfer and development, between R&D centres, businesses and the State. These four proposed projects aim to create scientific sustainability to the practical applications of knowledge management and intellectual capital management.
Within these projects, we intend to conduct scientific meetings and exchanges with researchers from the different ICAA partner’s organizations.
It is intended to obtain financing for these projects in Programs of the Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT, the European Program Horizon 2020 and under scientific patronage partnerships.
Resulting from these research projects, ICAA expected for 2016, the following scientific production:
• 4 scientific publications in Conference Proceedings - Papers already in
the submission process in the following conferences:
• CIKI 2016 - Congreso Internacional de Conocimiento e Innovación
• KM Conference 2016 - The International Institute for Applied Knowledge Management (IIAKM)
• TAKE 2016
• ECKM 2016 - European Conference on Knowledge Management.
• 1 Publication in peer-reviewed International Journal - Paper already
Resulting from these projects, we intend to hold at least two annual scientific publications in conference proceedings and two annual publications in peer-review international journals and a Special Issue on the issues of intellectual capital and management knowledge.
3.
Promotion Projects and Knowledge Transfer to Academic
and Business Environments.
ICAA has the plans to hold a number of projects that will facilitate the dissemination of good intellectual capital management practices in business environment while promoting transfer of knowledge between the academic and business worlds and vice versa.
We describe below the main projects.
a) Creation of a Scoring System of Self-diagnosis of Intellectual Capital Management
The creation of a Scoring System of Self-diagnosis of Intellectual Capital Management results from several research projects that have been carried out in ICLab and that will continue, since this is a system constantly updated.
The scoring system that allows companies to carry out their self-diagnostic on intellectual capital management.
This system will create indicators that can allow to position companies in the market, ensuring its partners (shareholders, creditors, investors, customers, suppliers, etc.) reliability in the management of intellectual capital.
From 2017, ICAA intends that the scoring tool passes from an experimental phase to a global implementation phase in the Portuguese Economy.
Simultaneously, from 2017, ICAA predicts that the scoring tool may enter in an experimental phase in Brazil and some countries of the European Union.
b) Creation of the Portuguese Standard (NP) of Intellectual Capital Management
The 2015 new version of ISO 9001, recently enacted, incorporates a fundamental change, which will put on the front line knowledge management, giving it a huge visibility as a management tool.
The new ISO 9001 includes a provision that makes explicit mention of knowledge as a resource and defines the requirements for its management. Any organization wishing to be certified or to maintain ISO 9001 certification must demonstrate how they manage their knowledge and how they plan to incorporate knowledge in the future. The obvious consequence of the enactment of this 2015 version is the explicit recognition of knowledge management as a key element of corporate governance. This is the first step for all those who believe in the importance of knowledge management as a strategic asset with the same importance as the other assets of the company.
Given this situation and the difficulty that most companies have to manage the assets of knowledge, it seems to us that effectively there will only be improvements in management standards if this extension is
made to the management of intellectual capital, being this the more broaden management and which falls under the knowledge management practices.
Thus, ICAA proposes to work with the Portuguese and European authorities responsible for ISO, in order to, first, create the Portuguese
Standards (NP) of Intellectual Capital Management and, in a
second-stage, create the European standard (EN).
It is expected that the NP may be in force until the end of 2017 and the NE may be created by the end of 2020.
c) Creation of an Intellectual Capital Portal
The ICAA intends to launch in the second half of 2016, an Intellectual
Capital Portal (www.portal-ic.com) that will systematize events and
scientific, academic and organizational oriented publications.
The Portal-IC work will work as a promotion tool of knowledge management and intellectual capital management and should be streamlined so as to become the main reference portal area by 2020.
At this conference, it will also be presented CIKI 2017, that will be hosted by ICAA in October 2017, in Lisbon. This conference will have integrated the GFIC 2017 - Global Forum of Intellectual Capital.
In 2016, the ICAA will prepare the conference, particularly with the launch of its website and the Call for Papers. For the conference, there will also be made contacts with the Luso-Colombian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other entities to bring to Portugal a mission with entrepreneurs from Colombia.
After 2017, ICAA intends to co-host and participate in other international conferences, whose selection process is still ongoing.
Workshops for Companies Intellectual Capital Courses Creation of the Intellectual Capital Portal Creation of an Intellectual Capital Scoring Applied Research Publication of Scientific Articles Publication of a Book Participation in Conferences: ECKM 2016, ECIC 2016, TAKE 2016, IIAKM, Web Summit Preparation of the Technical Commission of NPGCI
