Title: The main intellectual capital components that are relevant to the product, process and management firm innovativeness

Authors: Helena Santos-Rodrigues; Pedro Figueroa Dorrego; Carlos Mª. Fernandez-Jardon

Addresses: Economic and Management Sciences Department, Technological and Management School, Viana do Castelo Polytechnic Institute, Avenida do Atlântico, 4900-348 Viana do Castelo, Portugal. ' Marketing and Organization Department, Communication and Social Sciences, Vigo University, Campus A Xunqueira, s/n, 36005-Pontevedra, Spain. ' Applied Economics Department, Economic and Management Sciences Faculty, Vigo University, Lagoas Marcosende s/n Apdo. 874 36200 Vigo, Spain

Abstract: This paper focuses on the influence of the human, structural and relational capital on the product-process and management innovativeness of the firm. A global model including variables used in previous literature is used and we establish hypotheses for testing this model and use statistic technique to estimate the parameters of the model in a sample. To do so, we use a survey from 68 firms working on the auto components sector, established in the Northern Spain and Northern Portugal. We found firstly, that innovativeness has two main dimensions, perfectly differentiated, the product-process innovation and the management innovation; secondly, that the intellectual capital components influences differently each type of innovation capacity (innovativeness). We concluded that the human and relational capital influence positive and directly the product-process innovativeness and that the structural capital influences positive and directly the management innovativeness. These results highlight the importance and influence of the intellectual capital on the innovativeness. Moreover, they point out the different character of product-process and management innovativeness.

Keywords: intellectual capital; innovativeness; human capital; structural capital; relational capital; product innovation; process innovation; management innovation; automotive components; Spain; Portugal; automobile industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIS.2011.042661

International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems, 2011 Vol.1 No.3, pp.271 - 301

Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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