Aims of the Project

Aim of the research project is to define and develop models and tools for assessing and managing intellectual capital (IC) in order to analyse and drive the organizational value creation dynamics through performance improvement. Particular attention is paid about health sector organizations. Operatively, it is translated in defining a group of strategic and organizational approaches and tools – as an ideal "tool-kit" or portfolio of managerial solutions – to support managing and measuring cognitive and intangible resources within public and private organizational systems.

The general objective is divided in the following sub-objectives:

• To understand the value dimensions of an health care organization and the potential relationships between IC, performance improvement and organizational value creation;


• To define an interpretative framework to analyse the relationships between IC strategic management and organizational performance specifically referred to health care organizations;


• To define and develop managerial approaches, models and tools for the representation, evaluation and analysis of the relationships among the IC components and the performance of the organizational systems.


• To define, develop and implement an IC assessing and reporting model methodologically objective, replicable and rigorous. To this end, it is proposed the integration of the traditional economic and financial information with a group of non-economic indicators able to represent in a complete way the IC dimensions;


• To develop a methodology to map the critical components of IC which represent the main drivers of the value creation dynamics able to support the processes of planning and implementation of the organizational strategies;


• To elaborate a group of models as well as interpretative and prescriptive models to plan, program, implement and measure the impact of the IC management actions and projects aimed to improve health care organizations improvement. These models intend to provide health care managers a structured framework to define, plan, implement and assess IC management actions and projects;


• To define an empirical framework able to demonstrate the positive relationships between IC and organizational performance.


• To provide a set of managerial, political and research implications able to drive respectively managers to define IC strategic management initiatives; decision-makers to build political actions supporting sustainable development; scientists to develop a more rigorous theory of the firm based on the analysis and the comprehension of the IC strategic role.