Organizational Capital as Competitive Advantage of the Firm

The elements that constitute the organizational capital of the firm, namely its culture, structure, organizational learning, and processes can be a source of competitive advantage. This paper is an attempt to evaluate organizational capital from the Resource-Based View, according to the model for intellectual capital measurement and management proposed by CIC (2003). An assessment framework for intellectual capital is developed. By means of this framework organizational capital can be depicted as a set of (1) valuable assets, (2) difficult to imitate, (3) to replace, and (4) to transfer, (5) with a prolonged life expectancy, and (6) with a feasible rent appropriation. Building of such an evaluation framework allows further research about other components of the intellectual capital of the firm, bridging the literatures focused on the ResourceBased View and on intangible assets or intellectual capital.