Knowledge

Organizations managing intangible assets face an array of asset types. Understanding the nature of these intangibles can be important for accumulating and protecting the firm’s own resources and/or for targeting those of competitors. Basic information can be useful but is typically only operational, straightforward to manage, and often of little interest to competitors. From a value point of view, what is often the key asset is knowledge—applicable at operational, tactical, and strategic levels and potentially of great interest to competitors.

In the realm of intangible assets that may be of interest to organizations, knowledge has a fairly precise meaning. We all have a general idea of what knowledge is, but to employ it and protect it effectively, placing the concept in perspective and understanding its role ...