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With the shift to the Knowledge-Based Economy (KBE), knowledge becomes a driver for economic growth and becomes more important than capital, land and labour. This shift makes Intellectual Capital (IC) and resources vital for companies to create wealth, value and gain competitive advantage. The State of Qatar, in its "Qatar Vision 2030" plans to transfer its economy to KBE. This has put a pressure on companies to depend more on IC. The companies listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) have started to identify and report about their IC, and there is an expectation that the reported IC information might affect the market value of these companies. This paper investigates the relationship between the IC information reported in the annual reports and market value of the companies listed on the QSE. The study found that IC information has a significant relationship between IC information and firm market value. This finding indicates that companies report about their IC to help the stakeholders (including shareholders and investors) to understand the real value of the company (which includes IC values). This shows that the companies have started to depend more on IC to contribute to transforming the economy to KBE. This is the first study to examine the relationship between IC information and market value in Qatar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present the world community faces the challenge of building the Smart economy. It is well recognized that the economic progress comes from increased productivity, innovation, competitiveness, economic renewal and creativity of the workforce. The goal of the smart economy is to restore and retain a sustainable economic growth after a depressing crises, to provide a high-quality education system, to promote innovative business environment, to ensure high productivity, to translate knowledge creation into economic return. In this context innovative universities aim at training knowledge workers, forming the competences of learners in line with the requirement of modern labor market in the Smart economy. The graduates face the challenge to generate new ideas and to work in the knowledge- intensive industries that supply advanced ICT devices, systems and networks. The universities in the smart economy need to transform the infrastructure to meet the challenges. The paper presents the innovative infrastructure that facilitates a more full perception of new knowledge, interoperability between internal and external knowledge, a high degree of knowledge and innovation in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]