Helping Build Intellectual Capital


In 1992, Kogut and Zander conceptualised intellectual capital as consisting of 3 components: human, relational and structural capital.  

Human capital is the collective sum of an organisation's people and the knowledge they have to perform their daily functions.   Human capital is important because it is the source of innovation and re-invigoration.  Relational capital is an organization's "ex-firm" intangibles, i.e. it is the knowledge that an organisation can gain from its customers and suppliers.  Structural capital is the mechanisms and structures that give form to an organisation's human capital.  They include things like the work culture, the policies and procedures, and the technologies that enable human capital to function.

An important component of structural and relational capital is technology.  It is technologies like GIS and database management systems that enable an organisation to function, turn isolated individual's knowledge into group knowledge, and allow that knowledge to be shared.  It also enables external knowledge, i.e. relational capital, to be mined and integrated into internal systems.

The need for intelligently and effectively designed technology in projects and organisations is critical.  Nick Bontis of MacMaster University, in an article in the International Journal of Technology reports that by the year 2010, " the codified information base of the world is expected to 'double every 11 hours'’’.  With such exponential growth, geographic and data management systems, the tools that will enable people to innovate and work together, are critical to business success.

PDI has worked with the Bioactive Agents from Dryland Biodiversity of Latin America project to build the GIS and data management systems to enable researchers at the University of Arizona, La Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria in Argentina to focus on the important task of drug discovery and not on the mundane details of running GIS and database systems.  Chemists, botanists and ecologists should not have to become experts in data management to effectively do their work.  PDI developed tools to allow the projects human capital to better manage their daily tasks; developed integrated GIS & database systems that synthesized disparate threads of information into knowledge and negotiated collaborative data sharing agreements with the New York Botanical Gardens and the Mexican Commission on Biodiversity (CONABIO) to leverage external knowledge.

Samples:
You can view a short Flash demo of the data management system developed for the project. To view the demo you have to have the Macromedia Flash plugin installed. Most browsers today have it installed by default.   

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Subsets of project data can be found inthe New York Botanical Garden's Virutal Herbarium and in the Red Mundial hosted by the Mexican Commission on Biodiversity (CONABIO)
Directions for Red Mundial:
1. Accept the CONABIO Data Policy if requested
2. Select 'Plantas Vasculares y Germoplasma' by clicking on the + sign
3. Select the check box next to Agentes Bioactivos de Plantas Desérticas de Latinoamérica (ICBG)
4. Enter your parameters to query at the top of the page


References:
Bontis, N. (1999), "Managing organizational knowledge by diagnosing intellectual capital:
framing and advancing the state of the field’’, International Journal of Technology
Management, Vol. 18 No. 5-8, pp. 433-62.

Kogut, Bruce and Udo Zander. (1992). “Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative capabilities,
and the Replication of Technology”, Organization Science, 3, 383-397.


Funding:
Grant 5 U01 TW00316 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and United State Department of Agriculture (USDA)