Managing Intellectual Assets in SMES : Evaluating the Scope for Policy Intervention

This article analyses a programme of public policy intervention designed to stimulate both the supply and demand for Intellectual Asset (IA) management amongst the SME community in Scotland. The intervention concerns supporting SMEs in their identification, exploitation and management of IA, consisting of the development of a number of innovative management tools and instruments for SME use. The intervention is the outcome of a perceived market failure relating to the availability of suitable management tools to facilitate SMEs in the management of their IA. The programme and its analysis gives an important insight into the organisational and development processes that must accompany management tool use before it might be confidently predicted that positive business results are likely to be accrued from the application of such tools. This provides interesting, if uncomfortable, insights for policymakers when considering the resource implication to correct perceived market failure of this nature