Chinese business context - wasted Intellectual Capital?

Sammanfattning: Purpose: Develop insights in how companies can optimize the Intellectual Capital in the Chinese context Methodology: With an abductive scientific approach and an iterative process, the study has been conducted with a qualitative method. Analysis and synthesis has taken the study from theory and empirical data towards the conclusions. Theoretical perspectives: Theories from the fields of IC, knowledge based view of the firm and models for understanding culture and values have constituted the foundation. A framework for Intellectual Capital incorporating resources, three dimensions of flow of knowledge and the context has been developed (structural, cognitive, emotional). Empirical foundation: Interviews with respondents with practical experiences and understandings for the national culture has given a general description and five longer narratives to be analysed. Conclusions: Through the use of the developed framework, it is identified how the three dimensions of flow of knowledge are related to each other. Issues associated to the emotional dimension seem the most tenacious, and the hardest to resolve. Solving these issues would bring emotional congruence, and it is argued that the value of the missing emotional congruence may constitute the lion's share of the wasted Intellectual Capital.