How to Manage Intellectual Capital in Brazil? - Lessons Learned From the First Pilot-Implementations.

Experiences from Europe have shown that it is becoming more and more important to develop systematic management procedures for intangible assets for fast growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as they are the sound basis for an increasingly knowledge-based economy. Now, intangible assets become a key success factor for sustainable growth in the rapidly emerging Brazilian economy, and especially in the fast advancing city and state of Rio de Janeiro. Thus, the major management goal becomes to keep productivity at a constant high level in a dynamic and fast growing business environment in order to secure individual profits and national welfare at the same time. This goal can only be achieved if the intangible success factors, such as employees' expertise and motivation, internal communication and management structures as well as external relations, all of which are summarized in the concept of Intellectual Capital (IC), are maintained and developed in a professional and adequate manner, meeting the specific demands of fast growing SMEs. This pent-up demand in management has been the starting signal for the first pilot-project on implementing the management tool "Intellectual Capital Statement" (ICS) in ten pioneer SMEs from Rio de Janeiro. On the basis of the experiences from the German pilot-project "Wissensbilanz - Made in Germany" as well as the European pilotproject "InCaS", a special implementation procedure for micro and small companies has been designed and tested. The so-called "ICS Factory" aims at ensuring fast practical results in the companies as well as supporting rapid prototyping and an action research approach to be used for the development of an adapted Brazilian version of the ICS. In a two-day workshop concept, with three to five SMEs each represented by two to three senior managers and key people, a complete analysis of the company's individual IC is produced. The structured self-assessment approach of the European method served as the basis to build on. First intermediate results of the first ten pilot-implementations are presented in this paper contributing to the improvement of the procedural concept and ensuring sustainable usage of the ICS in the upcoming next generation of pilot-implementations in 60 Brazilian SMEs from the oil and gas sector. Hence, this paper provides a summary of the experiences from the first ten Brazilian ICS pilot-implementations, investigating the crucial role of the "ICS Moderator" who is assigned to each SME in the concept of the ICS Factory, being supported by a clearly structured, software-based implementation procedure. Furthermore, the paper will describe and discuss the challenge of integrating the ICS in a comprehensive strategic change process, taking into account the special circumstances of small, organically grown organizations in the Brazilian business environment. In order to initiate a continuous improvement cycle in the individual company, the ICS has to be used, focusing on practical actions for maintaining and developing its intangible assets to ensure future competition capability. In that way ICS supports sustainable business development in an emerging economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]