Components of Intellectual Capital

A consensus has been developed that intellectual capital can be characterized as consisting of three components:

• human capital,
• external capital
• internal capital (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Stewart, 1997; Sveiby, 1997).

Many practitioners suggest that Intellectual capital consists of three elements:

• Human capital
• Structural capital (or organizational capital)
• Relational (customer) capital

Human Capital refers to the skills/competences, training and education, and experience and value characteristics of an organisation’s workforce that in the minds of individuals: knowledge, skills, competences, experience, know-how, capabilities, expertise of the human members of the organization.

Relational Capital (also Relationship Capital, Customer Capital, External Capital). All relations a company entertains with external subjects, such as suppliers, partners, clients. External capital comprises relationships with customers and suppliers, brand names, trademarks and reputation.

Structural Capital (also Organizational Capital, Internal Capital) - "that which is left after employees go home for the night": processes, information systems, databases, policies, intellectual property, culture, etc. Thus, the knowledge embedded in organisational structures and processes.

Some authors have also identified the levels of Intellectual Capital:
I - The level of human capital (Experience, knowledge, idea, principle, technology, creativity, values)
II - The level of intellectual achievement (Text, diagram, program, software, data, invention, explicit knowledge)
III - The level of knowledge property (Patent, special technology, brand, copyright, business secret)
IV - The level of intellectual capital (Production technique, customer resource, brand, etc.) (Xiaohong Zhang, Sijing Li, 2007)