Measuring knowledge assets within organizations: An individual-level perspective

The purpose of this chapter in two-fold in that it seeks: (1) to develop an intellectual capital measurement system that specifically focuses on the knowledge assets possessed by company's employees, and (2) to explore the effect that intellectual capital dimensions have on two individual job attitudes such as job satisfaction and turnover propensity. The proposed model has been developed based on the data gathered on a two-year survey on all the employees of a leading company in the Italian food product market. The final sample comprises 1.117 usable observations. Results suggest that the knowledge assets of an organization can be measured, at the employee level, by focusing on two intellectual capital dimensions, namely human capital and structural capital. Also, human capital and structural capital have been found to positively affect individual job attitudes such as job satisfaction and low turnover propensity. Specifically, structural capital fully mediates the effect of the human capital dimension on individual job attitudes. © 2011, IGI Global.