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THE WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE
INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL AND THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ORGANIZATION
Thomas A. Stewart
The Wealth of Knowledge takes the intellectual capital bull by the horns and reveals how we can move from intangible capital to real wealth.
In 1997, Tom Stewart's book Intellectual Capital rocked the business community, arguing that in today's information economy the most important asset a company had was often not its tangible goods, but its intangible assets - its patents, the knowledge of its workers and the information in its computers' data banks.
In The Wealth of Knowledge, Stewart now shows how to apply the concept of intellectual capital to manage knowledge assets and gain a competitive edge in the 21st century. Companies can not just save but create hundreds of millions of dollars by exploiting knowledge assets more creatively and managing them more efficiently.
This new book also extends the theory of intellectual capital. The emergence of a knowledge economy tests many of the assumptions on which business was based in the 20th Century. Why do companies exist? How should they be organised? How should people be compensated for their work? It also plunges into the thick of the controversial yet vital topic of measurement and accounting, which are increasingly difficult to quantify when a corporation's greatest assets are intangible.
A truly grand sequel to Stewart's seminal, original book, The Wealth of Knowledge reveals the hidden promise of intellectual capital, and helps chart a step-by-step course of action for corporations operating in the midst of today's knowledge economy.
Thomas A. Stewart is the Editor of Harvard Business Review, one of the most highly respected business publications in the world. He was formerly Editorial Director of Business 2.0 and a member of the Board of Editors of Fortune. He pioneered the concept of intellectual capital in a series of landmark Fortune articles beginning in 1991. His first book, Intellectual Capital, was a finalist in the Financial Times/Booz, Allen and Hamilton award for the best business book of the year. He speaks frequently on intellectual capital and related subjects to business groups and economic forums around the world.
A Fellow of the World Economic Forum, Mr Stewart was named one of the world's 50 most influential mangement thinkers by the online comunity of the Financial Times. He serves on the panel of judges for the innovation award given by the Economic Development Board of Singapore. In 1999, the American Society for Training and Devleopment gave him a 'Champion of the Workplace Learning and Performance Award'. In 1996, Business Intelligence awarded Stewart its inaugural 'Knowledge Mangement Awareness Award' for his contributions to the field of knowledge management.