HISTORY

ASIA-LINK PROGRAMME

SPICE - Sustainable Program on Intellectual Capital Education

"Intellectual Capital is the spice of economies"

Aim of the action

This 2-year project created a 30 ECTS curriculum to better prepare undergraduate students, as well as teaching staff and executives and middle managers in industry, for the knowledge economy. The project introduces Intellectual Capital as a new subject field into the curricula of the partner insti-tutions in Asia and Europe and its stakeholders in industry. This will innovate the current undergra-duate curricula of the departments in business, communication, finances, and information communi-cation technology into the direction of the knowledge economy and its new business values.

Main deliverables

The SPICE courseware deploys the following instruments to achieve its goals:

• Key Course Texts on Intellectual Capital
• An online case-database with industry-based case-studies and best-practices Intellectual Capital in context (Europe and Asia)
• A train-the-trainer programme to facilitate future dissemination of the outcomes of the project

The courseware focuses at the enhancement of knowledge professional competencies of European and Asian undergraduate students in the departments of business economics, finance and accounting, information technology and communication management. The focus is to describe the intangible drivers (competences, knowledge-ability, efficiency, management concepts, innovation, communities of practice and similar concepts) in their relationship to European and Asian business cultures. The web-based platform creates a forum for discussion and a place for the publication of new knowledge about the nature of industry and organizations in the knowledge economy in Asia and Europe. The course units enable the participants to design a comparative and cross-cultural perspective on Intellectual Capital:

• Identification of the critical intangible value drivers in differing business cultures and national cultures in Europe and Asia, analyse what makes for success and sustainability in knowledge-intensive businesses.
• Measuring IC and economic, social and cultural factors to create new business values matching the requirements of the knowledge economy in a European and Asian context
• Developing awareness of the importance of intangible assets as main sources of innovation and production in the main business layers of Intellectual Capital (human capital, structural capital, relational capital).
• Developing a vision on the effective use of intangibles for future value creation and learning to recognize sources of competitive advantage in Europe and Asia and in between both economies and translating these into strategic ambitions.
• Managing the 'organization' and people in European and Asian business cultures, collaborating to productive ends.

Dr. Marien van den Boom

INHOLLAND University

Centre for Research in Intellectual Capital

E-mail: marien.vandenboom@inholland.nl