Evaluating the operational performance of knowledge-based industries: the perspective of intellectual capital

Performance evaluation is more than a quantitative concept but should also take industrial characteristics into account in order to form an accurate evaluation. In the past, evaluations of the operational performance of knowledge-based industries have missed out a significant factor, which is intellectual capital (IC). By adopting data envelopment analysis (DEA), a multiple-objective decision making method, this study aims to construct an efficiency evaluation model for the Taiwanese digital content industry based on the perspective of IC. The empirical results suggest that the scale of the digital content companies does play an important role in influencing the operating efficiency. The firms have a small amount of capital can still attain optimal efficiency, from the perspective of IC. In addition, human resource capital and customer capital are the most significant influential factors that deserve digital content firms’ attention. It is suggested that enterprises in the digital content industries should focus more on managing their IC. DEA can provide the semiconductor firms’ operations with insights into resource allocation and competitive advantage as well as help with strategic decision-making.