Marketing-specific intellectual capital: conceptualization, scale development and empirical illustration

Abstract

Purpose The aims of this paper are to identify and classify the knowledge resources that shape intellectual capital (IC) within the marketing function, to develop and validate a related scale and to demonstrate the scale's applicability in an empirical context.

Design/methodology/approach A literature-based approach was adopted to identify and classify knowledge assets in the field of marketing. The new scale's content was then tested in a number of companies with different profiles. A subsequent survey of a representative sample of 346 Spanish firms sought to validate the scale and to assess those companies' marketing-related IC.

Findings The literature search provided the basis for a marketing-related IC architecture comprising three main categories, nine subcategories and eighty items whose validity was tested and confirmed. The survey revealed that marketing-specific human capital (HC) is the most developed knowledge resource in Spanish firms, followed by marketing-specific relational capital (RC), while marketing-specific structural capital (SC) is the least developed. Significant differences were also found among companies with different profiles (B2C vs B2B, high-tech vs low-tech and manufacturing vs services).

Originality/value This study makes a valuable contribution to the IC literature as one of the first to deploy the general IC framework in a specific functional area (here: marketing and sales) for more meaningful and in-depth assessment of firm-specific knowledge resources.