Intellectual capital is a term with various definitions in different theories of economics. Accordingly its only truly neutral definition is as a debate over economic "intangibles". Ambiguous combinations of instructional capital and individual capital employed in productive enterprise are usually what is meant by the term, when it is used to actually refer to a capital asset whose yield is intellectual rights.

Such use is rare, however, and the term rarely or never appears in accounting proper - it refers to a debate, and to the assumed capital base that creates intellectual property, rather than an auditable style of capital.

Perhaps due to their industry focus, the term "intellectual capital" is employed mostly by theorists in information technology, innovation research, technology transfer and other fields concerned primarily with technology, standards, and venture capital. It was particularly prevalent in 1995-2000 as theories proliferated to explain the "dotcom boom" and high valuations. During this period it was often observed that computer code and programmers were bearing a substantial premium when combined in new unproven companies. It is hard to see how this differs from the tulip boom, however, when it would have been just as likely to assign a high value to the seemingly-magical combinations of tulip bulbs and, say, the pots they grew in.

Individuals versus instructions

Focusing where the theories agree, there is no clear standard beyond the agreement that individuals and instructions contribute very different value in microeconomics. The question of the contribution of intellectual capital that combines the two in a process is more likely a matter of political economy, and difficult to separate from other issues of relative values of capital across a whole economy or society.

This debate certainly did not begin with Baruch Lev and Naomi Klein - the roots of it can be seen as far back as John Stuart Mill and David Ricardo in the very origins of political economy. In the 20th century, the critiques of Ayn Rand and Richard Stallman are seen by some as representing a spectrum in which all instructional value is derived from individuals, or individuals are seen primarily as valued in terms of the instructional capital which they create - clearly political positions reflecting different attitudes to capitalism, rather than an analysis of how individuals and instructions actually interact. Or, some critics argue, how either affect society or nature.


from : en.wikipedia.org