Abstract

Intellectual capital can be defined as the ‘economic value’ of three categories of intangible assets of a
company-that includes human capital, organisational capital and social capital collectively. Sustained advantage
can occur only in the situations in which physical, human, and organisational capital varies across the firms and
where some firms may be unable to obtain necessary resources that are benefiting other firms. Intellectual capital
is viewed as a sub-set of intangible capital, where the term intangible relates to assets without physical existence
and capital refers to assets retained by the organisation to contribute to future profits. Intangible resources are
more likely to produce a competitive advantage because they often are rare and socially complex there by
making them difficult to imitate. A company’s intangible assets are increasingly crucial and positively related to
organisational performance in today’s knowledge economy.

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