A consistent assessment of Intellectual Capital in SMEs

The globalisation and the accompanying increasing international competition put considerable pressure European small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The key to competitiveness increasingly appears to he the people combine, master and commercialise their know-how. Hence it is crucial for European SMEs to utilise and man knowledge efficiently in order to obtain a competitive advantage. While different national approaches on the management Intellectual Capital (IC) have been developed and tested, there is no European wide standard regarding the measurement IC. The collective research project "Intellectual Capital Statement - Made in Europe" aims at harmonising these scattered approaches on a scientific as well as a practical level. Based on scientific consensus a first framework has been developed providing a common ground for the measurement of IC by introducing the Intellectual Capital Statement (ICS). The IC an instrument to assess, develop and report an organisation's IC, to monitor critical success factors systematically, an support strategic management decisions. As InCaS puts emphasis on a practical approach suitable for SMEs, framework is to be understood as a starting point for phase I of the project, providing the basis for further development of the method towards practicability and harmonisation. It will be expanded to the final "European ICS guideline" supported by the "ICS toolbox" in subsequent project phases. Main focus of this paper is the InCaS project and accompanying European approach on measuring IC. As a first result a brief overview on the existing approaches measuring IC is provided. Furthermore, the InCaS project as well as the ICS method is described and preliminary res are discussed.