Evaluating the Strategic Position of Intellectual Capital in Insurance Industry

Abstract

Intellectual capital (IC) has devoted a special position in business strategy and management to itself. Measurement of IC improves the management and utilization of this valuable asset. Furthermore, strategic IC is different for various sectors, putting it beside the complexities relating to identification, categorization and indexing, makes the IC measurement a problematic issue. This study is focused on evaluating the strategic position of IC and it’s measurement in Iran insurance industry as a knowledge-based and growing sector. So in the first step, strategic position of IC is evaluated among important firm’s resources through ranking of insurance resources by use of a suitable Fuzzy TOPSIS technique. Considering the high strategic order of IC in insurance resources portfolio, in the second step suitable indicators for IC measurement in three different aspects of IC including asset, investment and effect is proposed. Insurer companies can improve the management, monitoring and development of their IC using these indicators.

Keywords

• intellectual capital
• resource-based view
• strategic resources
• insurance industry
• multi criteria decision making methods