Research On Intellectual Capital And Enterprise Competitive Advantage

At the background of global knowledge-based web economy, this thesis argues that enterprise knowledge is core to enterprise advantage after probing the essential question why enterprises exist and develop. The problem with many companies is that their biggest assets cannot be accounted for in a traditional manner and nobody seems to know how to predict future growth and financial success. With the de-layering effect observed in today's knowledge-driven environment, intellectual capital is becoming increasingly important for establishing the advantage of enterprises. The research on intellectual capital helps to visualize the true value of these enterprises. Knowledge also lays the groundwork for building intellectual capital. The framework mainly consists of human capital, structural capital, and customer capital and knowledge management. Finally, based on a series of data from an investigation report on knowledge management in Chinese enterprises, this thesis discusses the status quo and difficulties in the area of knowledge management and puts forward some suggestions.Owing to the tendency of knowledge-based economy, the author believes that the study of intellectual capital is not only important to the management theory, but it is also valuable to enterprise advantage as it affects both the short term profitability and the long term sustainability of the business operations.