Professor James Guthrie, 7 November, 2014,

plenary for the ICICKM conference Sydney University, Australia .

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His 36-chapter work described what has since become standard knowledge among the world’s finance and business professionals and a building block of balance sheet accounting: double-entry bookkeeping. And since the advent of this method, invested capital has been the pillar of every enterprise, government, and economy. Even today, in the wake of the global financial crisis and amid a spreading debt crisis, finance capital remains dominant everywhere.

But a much bigger crisis is yet to come—one that strikes at the very purpose of economies but is scarcely noted, let alone managed: the crisis in Social capital, Natural capital, Intellectual capital, Human capital.

Two methods of inquiry.

1. personal story telling, as I grew as a IC scholar involved in the process and the development of important institutions and ideas that support IC going forward.

2. an archival reconstruction of IC PS publications in a selection of journals, specifically focusing on the public sector to determining patterning in the published literature.

Finally, to provide several challenges for IC PS researchers going forward and also to provide some sign posts and to how we might become more relevant!!

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1980/90s “Swedish movement" in IC and knowledge management in both research and practice, but mainly about corporate reporting.

My Stockholm university visit 1996 on a six month sabbatical and I was introduced to IC

Especially to Human capital

Then my links with the OECD

•

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International Symposium Measuring Reporting Intellectual Capital: Experiences, Issues, and Prospects, June, 1999, Amsterdam, OECD, Paris.

This conference can be considered the “birthplace of IC”. Attended by many government ministers, heads of corporations, academics and others this conference brought into the light IC as a global management practice and government policy issue.

I helped designed the academic section and many of the “big names” were there, Stefano , Jan, Ulf , Richard, federica, ect and it was important to observe that many of us had not really developed research around IC.

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From this conference, 2 important academic contributions of mine were published in the early JICs. 1) summary of developed in the IC field and a mapping of these in terms of stages.

2)the first IC disclosure studies which method has been replicated by many studies since, including the a few in the public sector.

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2. Petty and Guthrie (2000) ICA Literature Review

Journal of Intellectual

Capital, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 155-

176.7

OECD on "Intellectual Assets, Innovation and Value Creation", October 2005 and in 2008 was involved in the establishment of IC networks by the OECD.

Advisor to Australian Government Consultative Committee on Knowledge Capital since 2005, this group of industry and government leaders promoted a discussion within Australia as to the value of “knowledge capital” to an organisation and the nation.

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Guthrie, J. Ricceri, F. and Dumay, J. (2012), “Reflections and Projections: A Decade of Intellectual Capital Accounting Research”, British Accounting Review, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 68-92.Dumay John , (2014) "15 years of the Journal of Intellectual Capital and counting: A manifesto for transformational IC research", Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 15 Iss: 1, pp.2 – 37.

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Prof. James GuthrieJames.guthrie@mq.edu

.au

A/Prof. John DumayJohn.dumay@mq.ed

Authorship: ◦

Based on the mastery of the topic through “acculturation and socialisation”.◦

Need to be aware of the ‘key papers’

and develop

critiqueStructured:◦

A proceduralisation of the process◦

A set of explicit and demanding rules◦

Comprehensive, minimise bias, transparency, accountability of the technique, and reliability.

Identify subjects of emerging importance –“the third stage of intellectual capital research”.Deals with the complexities of organisational versus abstract positivistic theory researchChallenge the status quo, employ innovative methodologies, experiment with the novel and take risks

Guthrie et al. (2012, p. 74) found that the public sector is one of the least addressed areas of IC research.

This is surprising considering that public sector contributes a significant proportion of GDP in most economies, and is strongly reliant on the generation and utilisation of capabilities and knowledge in its service delivery

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Accounting, Auditing and

Accountability Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 129-

169.

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1.

To establish the relevance of the analysis in the earlier papers, in light of an analysis of the IC PS published work that has been undertaken in the period

2.

To identify the diverse aspects of IC PS that have been studied, highlighting those areas we see as significant, as well those areas that may have been overlooked.

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RQ1. How has research for inquiring into [the literature]developing? This question should be based on a literature/context review outlining the history of how [the literature]came about. It must

establish that literature under review is important.

RQ2. What is the focus of [the literature]?The argument here is that that we need to establish the current basis and critique [the literature] as an emerging, developing or maturing paradigm.

RQ3. What is future for [the literature]? This flows on from the above question. Here, we need to make normative arguments about what future research would benefit [the literature] in practice and inform policy and or regulation.

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1. Number of ICPS publications2. Top cited ICPS3. Methodological mix4. Themes of ICPS

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Journal Code Year Author Title Citations

JIC 2001 Borins, S. Encouraging innovation in the public sector. 155

JIC 2002 Chua, A. The influence of social interaction on knowledge creation. 137

JIC 2006 Sánchez, M. P. and S. Elena Intellectual capital in universities: Improving transparency and internal management. 97

JIC 2003 Serrano Cinca, C., C. Mar Molinero, et al.

The measurement of intangible assets in public sector using scaling techniques. 94

JIC 2003 O'Donnell, D., P. O. Regan, et al. Human interaction: The critical source of intangible value. 85

EAR 2003 Habersam, M. and M. Piber Exploring intellectual capital in hospitals: two qualitative case studies in Italy and Austria. 77

JIC 2004 Hellstrom, T. and K. Husted Mapping knowledge and intellectual capital in academic environments: A focus group study. 66

JIC 2007 Andreou, A. N., A. Green, et al. A framework of intangible valuation areas and antecedents. 64

JIC 2005 Wu, A. The integration between Balanced Scorecard and intellectual capital. 60

JIC 2003 Chaminade, C. and U. JohansonCan guidelines for intellectual capital management and reporting be considered without addressing cultural differences?

57

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So, what next? 1. Our notion of activism is soft-gloved – it should be about contributing to public policy debates?2. There are no shortages of IC PS issues to engage with.3. Public and policy making community ready to engage in many IC PS issues (e.g. National accounts, integrated reporting, public value, HES, Austrian regulation, etc)).

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Lesson 1: Avoid self indulgent and protracted entanglement with theory and first order issues.

Lesson 2: Accept that public policy engagement most likely to be around technical aspects.

Lesson 3: Get over a fixation with only having to solely to publish in a few top A* journals.

Lesson 4: Be active in Engagement with a wider community of practice, the profession and policy makers.

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Stage 1:Emeging of IC frameworks

Stage 2: Focus on measuring and reporting of IC

Stage 3: Focus on critical and performative of IC in actionStage 4: Praxis and policyStage 5: ??????????

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In conclusion, it does not end there!!

IC PS research should continue and at JIC and AAAJ’s we welcome openness to new, innovative perspectives on, and approaches to, our accounting research topics.

Too many researchers remain locked into familiar, safe topics and perspectives.

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Endless replication of form is not a pathway to the new perspectives, innovative approaches, the searching critiques and solutions that are demanded by communities and society.

The latter are the stuff of which new discoveries are made.

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