Mapping the scientific production on intellectual capital: an epistemological study from the perspectives proposed by marr (2005)

Abstract

Intellectual Capital has drawn the attention of professionals, the stock market, companies and researchers in the area due to its multidisciplinary character and because it is a source of competitive advantage. This paper identifies characteristics of the scientific literature on intellectual capital in the national and international context between 1994 and 2008. It is an exploratory, descriptive and qualitative investigation that has a conceptual theoretical nature and employs an inductive logic. It is based on documents and uses content analysis. Its main results are: (i) the most representative perspective is the Strategic one, both in the national (27,6%) and the international context (33,8%); (ii) in the international context, the perspectives with the smallest number of concepts were the Legal and the Marketing ones, with 92,31% and 83,33%, respectively; in the national context, the Legal perspective did not present any concept; and, (iii) as for the initial landmark of scientific production, the year 1996 was identified in the international context and the year 1997 in the national context. As a conclusion, the paper presents a table containing certain characteristics of the scientific production on Intellectual Capital in the national and international contexts between 1994 and 2008 in an epistemological perspective informed by the proposals of Marr (2005), showing a need for further theoretical, empirical or theoretical-empirical investigations on the subject.

Key words: intellectual capital, scientific production, national context, international context.