In today’s economy and information society, competition has become inevitable for businesses. In order to survive in the competitive world, businesses should attach importance to information and information technologies, process and manage information, and ensure that more information is created by taking into account the skills and abilities of their employees. As a matter of fact, the more information and information technologies a business has, the more its performance will increase and the more advantageous it will be in the competitive world. At this point, many businesses have turned to intangible assets to provide sustainable advantage, and this orientation has revealed the concept of intellectual capital.
Intellectual Capital Elements and Impacts
Intellectual capital; Human capital is divided into 3 groups as structural capital and relational capital. human capital; It refers to the talent, school and job training, experience, knowledge and human elements of the employees in the enterprise. Structural capital; It is a mixture of elements such as the structure, culture, system, financial relations, information transfer, information sharing, patents, brand value of the enterprise. Finally, relational capital; It is also called customer capital and refers to all customer-based and other relationships that will provide added value to the business.
In the light of the aforementioned concepts, it is an inevitable fact that the extent to which businesses adopt intellectual capital assets, adapt them to business systems and how they use information is of serious importance for companies that want to gain competitive advantage and increase business performance.
Effect of Human Capital on Business Performance
The most important part of the knowledge and skills required for sustainability resides in individuals. For this reason, the development of new ideas by creative and knowledgeable employees, the questioning of existing behaviors by employees with a rational approach, the introduction of innovative perspectives directly affect the performance of the company and the sustainability of the company in a positive way.
Effect of Structural Capital on Business Performance
Structural capital refers to an organization’s processes, databases, codes, management style, business culture and corporate structure of the business. Structural capital is also the infrastructure created to make human capital valuable, and it is any part of the business that remains after the human resource leaves the organization. However, having a good level of knowledge within the company is not enough to affect the performance of the company alone. In order to achieve a sustainable success, the structural capital of the companies should be strong and all kinds of opportunities should be provided to their employees to ensure success.
The Effect of Relational Capital (Customer Capital) on the Performance of the Business
Relational capital is the value an organization adds to the firm as a result of its interaction with customers, suppliers and the rest of society. All concepts related to the market are within the relational capital, and relational capital is the determining factor in the transformation of intellectual capital into business performance. Customer capital can be easily tracked by looking at financial indicators. Reaching the maximum level of relational capital in firm performance is only possible with the participation of structural capital and human capital.
Conclusion
In today’s world of information and technology, intellectual capital applications provide businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage and performance increase. Intellectual capital is known as the ability of a business to “add value” to products or services in a way that can significantly exceed its intellectual property, resulting in high growth or high earnings. In order for this ability to be more effective, it has been divided into some components. These components are human capital, relational capital and customer capital, all of which are strongly linked to each other.
Since the use of intellectual capital increases the competitiveness of the enterprises, it is clear that it will provide positive returns to the enterprises in the medium and long term. Businesses should not ignore the power of intellectual capital and should seriously consider this power while creating their strategies, goals and objectives.
