If You Can Measure It,You Can Manage It: A Case of Intellectual Capital

Despite the great importance attributed to intellectual capital (IC) in the past two decades or so, its measurement and management have remained elusive, mainly because of inappropriate prior models of IC measurement. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to make adjustments to an existing model, the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC), and to present an adjusted‐VAIC model to measure IC. We tested our new model on data from 10 emerging and developed world markets and obtained more consistent results than prior studies. Our results indicate a significant positive relationship between IC and its components (human, innovation and physical capitals) and firm performance. Therefore, the adjusted‐VAIC model can be used with confidence to measure IC. Our study has important implications for both academia and industry concerning the measurement of IC.     

Introduction to the special issue

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination -     

Fairness and intentionality in children’s decision-making

Few studies have addressed the role of different aspects of the Theory of Mind (ToM) (intentionality and false belief understanding) in decision-making by adults playing strategic games where the importance of fairness is crucial. Even more interesting, this topic has been less investigated with children. The goal of this research was to explore the development of the decisional behavior along with the understanding of fairness, intentions and first- and second-order false belief understanding in children who are just acquiring those abilities. Multiple rounds of the ultimatum game with a human and a non-human partner (child/roulette wheel) were played by 177 children in the age range of 5–10 years, who also completed classic false belief tasks. Results confirm the key role of fairness sensibility across age groups and different degrees of the relevance of ToM according to the variability of children’s decisional behavior (stable vs. dynamic).     

Sustainability and innovation in staple crop production in the US Midwest

An agroecosystem is constrained by environmental possibility and social choices, mainly in the form of government policies. To be sustainable, an agroecosystem requires production systems that are resilient to natural stressors such as disease, pests, drought, wind and salinity, and to human constructed stressors such as economic cycles and trade barriers. The world is becoming increasingly reliant on concentrated exporting agroecosystems for staple crops, and vulnerable to national and local decisions that affect resilience of these production systems. We chronicle the history of the United States staple crop agroecosystem of the Midwest region to determine whether sustainability is part of its design, or could be a likely outcome of existing policies particularly on innovation and intellectual property. Relative to other food secure and exporting countries (e.g. Western Europe), the US agroecosystem is not exceptional in yields or conservative on environmental impact. This has not been a trade-off for sustainability, as annual fluctuations in maize yield alone dwarf the loss of caloric energy from extreme historic blights. We suggest strategies for innovation that are responsive to more stakeholders and build resilience into industrialized staple crop production.     

Feminist Geopolitics: Unpacking (In)Security,Animating Social Change

This piece is the introduction to a special section on Feminist Geopolitics focusing specifically on securitisation. This introduction provides an overview of the field of feminist geopolitics and situates the contributions of the articles that follow. We argue that the contributions to the section push the field in two distinct ways. First, a number of the pieces draw important connections between geopolitical and geoeconomic processes. Second, the pieces continue to excavate the complex relationship between geopolitical processes and everyday life. Taken as a whole, this special section highlights the utility of feminist geopolitical approaches for gaining analytic clarity and thinking through and enacting positive social change.     

The role of human sustainability in professional service firms. Evidence from Italy

Sustainability is a central topic for an increasing number of companies, as a part of their business strategies. Human sustainability, that is, preserving and improving the quality of human life, in other words, maintaining and advancing human capital, appears as one relevant issue in that context. Humans and human capital are the foremost resources for professional service firms. Their role in the international economic scenario will most likely depend on how they deal with human sustainability and the wellbeing of their people. In this perspective, the paper investigates the antecedents, and organisational implications, of human sustainability in such firms using a structural equation model (SEM) developed on 4,301 questionnaires filled by Italian Chartered Accountants. Findings shed new lights on some implications of human sustainability. Results show that human sustainability has a direct and significative impact on a firm's ability to innovate, fostering creativity and intellectual capital, thus being significant for corporate performance. As a practical implication, firms should accordingly shape their business strategies towards accounting for human sustainability aspects.     

Industry 4.0 and circular economy: An exploratory analysis of academic and practitioners' perspectives

The union between Industry 4.0 and the circular economy (CE) appears relatively recent. In this sense, new trading zones for sharing a common scenario among academics and practitioners are needed. The paper aims to investigate the link between Industry 4.0 and the CE by understanding how Industry 4.0 can foster the impact of the CE on companies. The study proposes a broader perspective that includes thematic and content analysis gathering data on professional documents based on business cases, newspaper articles, press releases and specialised blogs, as well as scientific papers. The joint academic-practitioners view highlights how Industry 4.0 has the potential to impact on the CE through countless actions: increasing waste disposal; promoting remanufacturing; enhancing the efficiency of critical resources such as water, energy, gas and CO₂; and improving business models and the mission of companies. However, barriers still exist in its adoption, stressing the need for holistic and integrated design and a proactive environment of collaboration among stakeholders. Results lead to practical as well as research implications.     

Pope Francis on Overcoming Exclusion: A Theological Vision with Economic and Social Implications

The ethical imperative to overcome exclusion is a key component of the social teachings and advocacy efforts of Pope Francis. At the very core of the pastoral and social vision he proposes is a drive to resist the global trend toward growing inequality and to encourage greater solidarity, which includes extending economic opportunities much more broadly. Even more vehemently than his papal predecessors, Francis insists on prioritizing the concrete well‐being of people facing hardship and oppression, so that nobody is relegated to the category of “the throwaway.” While the theme of mercy (a “soft” virtue, inasmuch as it involves voluntary action to overcome indifference and suffering) is prominent in many of his ethical appeals, Francis notably displays a distinctive structural analysis (a “hard” diagnostic tool) when addressing injustices in the global economy. The plights of victims of human trafficking, of global climate change, of restricted work opportunities due to globalization, and other causes of human suffering are best analyzed with ample attention to structures that require transformation. While economists and sociologists may be less interested in the underlying moral anthropology and spirituality that grounds the social teachings of Francis, it is undeniable that a coherent social vision undergirds the insistence of the Jesuit pope on greater social inclusion—a vision that applies to the full range of economic, environmental, and social issues. These concerns are on especially full display in two major teaching documents of Francis: his 2013 exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. In each, the pope employs an astute structural lens that reveals injustices and allows him to propose strategies to overcome inequality and exclusion.