Measurement of national intellectual capital – application to EU countries
The aim of the article is to present both an alternative approach to measurement of intellectual capital of a country (IC) and a calculation of IC index. In order to achieve it, at first a definition of IC was adopted and a conceptual model of IC was worked out. Then, a method of operationalisation of conceptual model was elaborated, which comprised: 1. method of transforming the theoretical concept and relations into more concise ones that enabled the measurement sensu stricto, 2. selection of indicators of each component of IC, 3. adoption of appropriate method of aggregation of indicators. Finally the measurement of each component of IC and IC itself for UE countries was executed. Proposed method of IC measurement can be regarded as the extension of the proposals of Bontis (Bontis, 2004) and Andriessen and Stam (Andriessen, Stam, 2004). Thanks to the application of different approach to data aggregation the subjective decision concerning weights imposed on IC indicators made by Bontis was confirmed. Different factor loadings and resulting from them factor scores for each measurement model of components of IC and IC itself proved the indicators are not of the same importance. Although it could be useful and interesting to compare their relative importance, unfortunately it was impossible to conduct due to the lack of entire comparability of the indicators used. Strong correlation between IC index and GDP per capita indicated that there was a significant level of information carried by the IC index. First of all, it should be pointed out that IC probably explains significant part of the difference in the level of development of various countries. Secondly, it does not carry the full information about the value of the GDP in economy, so it possibly carries also information about the future development of a country.