Title: Intellectual capital components in Indian microfinance sector: scale development and an empirical study

Authors: Saswata Barpanda; Susmita Mukhopadhyay

Addresses: Amrita School of Business, Amrita University (Amritapuri Campus), Clappana P.O., Kollam, Kerala, 690525, India ' Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, 721302, India

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale to analyse different components and sub-components of intellectual capital (IC) with special reference to microfinance sector. The data has taken from 252 microfinance institutions (MFIs) providing microfinance service irrespective of their legal status. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory analysis used to develop the scale. This supports the classification given by many researchers and confirms the three dimensions of IC are human capital, structural capital and relational capital. But the sub-dimensions seems to be are industry specific with 36 items with nine factors being extracted. The nine sub-dimensions or factors includes client related competencies, decision-making competencies, value driven competencies, processual competencies, infrastructural competencies, MFI-client relationship, MFI-stakeholder relationship, client feedback, and stakeholder dignity. The proposed metrics are a useful benchmarking tool for microfinance practitioners, managers to use to monitor and improve their organisational intellectual capital.

Keywords: intellectual capital; human capital; structural capital; relational capital; microfinance; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLIC.2016.079354

International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, 2016 Vol.13 No.4, pp.338 - 360

Received: 31 Jul 2015
Accepted: 30 Dec 2015
Published online: 27 Sep 2016 *

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