Intellectual capital and organizational commitment

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to determine whether personal assets or organizational investments from an intellectual capital perspective have an influence on employee commitment in the Taiwanese cultural creative industries. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a cross‐level design to conduct a questionnaire survey. The research variables covered two levels: individual level (personal human capital and organizational commitment); and organizational level (organizational intellectual capital). The authors contacted 39 small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan's cultural creative industries, requesting their participation in the study, and 27 managers and 86 employees in 27 cultural creative firms provided research information. The response rate was 69 percent for managers and 44 percent for employees, respectively. Findings – The research results indicate that both personal human capital and organizational intellectual capital were antecedents of organizational commitment. For personal human capital, employees with higher levels of education are less committed to organizations. Tenured employees were found to be more committed to organizations. However, the authors did not find a significantly positive effect of personal age on commitment. In regard to organizational intellectual capital, the stocks of human capital and social capital increased organizational commitment. Interestingly, organizational capital reduced organizational commitment for employees in cultural creative industries. Originality/value – To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the cross‐level antecedents of organizational commitment from an intellectual capital perspective. In addition, the authors provide some empirical evidence focusing on one emerging industry in Taiwan, i.e. cultural creative industries.