An ANP-multi-criteria-based methodology to link intangible assets and organizational performance in a Balanced Scorecard context

In the current knowledge society, both intangible assets (IAs) and intellectual capital (IC) are considered some of the key drivers of value creation and competitive advantage generation for organizations by both researchers and practitioners. A wide range of models and methods have been developed from the 90s, with different approaches and from diverse management perspectives, with the objective of measuring and managing these two concepts. However, only a few of them are integrated in a performance measurement system context and analyze the relationships among the intangible assets and the strategic objectives defined within this context. This paper aims to develop a methodology for identifying, measuring and managing the relevance of intangible assets in the achievement of an organization's strategic objectives as defined in the Balanced Scorecard context. Within the methodology, the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is applied as a useful tool for both the representation of the relationships between the intangible assets and the strategic objectives and the evaluation of the impact of the intangible assets on the attainment of the strategic objectives. The proposed methodology was applied in a university research center in order to confirm the benefits that it provides in the management of intangible assets. ANP is applied to link management concepts, mainly intellectual capital and performance management, in order to improve organizational decision-making processes.This work improves the efforts of performance management to situate, measure, manage and link intellectual capital to organizational performance.The methodology presented is novel, as none scientific work has brought together these concepts/methodologies in such a sound and mathematically linked way.The results of applying this methodology to a university research centre are presented and analyzed.

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