4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Non-Quantitiative & of Limited Value, 2002-05-24
For individuals actually interested in quantitative measurements of intellectual property value, this book is largely a waste of time. The text is full of a lot of business school "value creation" idealism and has little practical value in my opinion. Indeed, for those really interested in valuing intellectual property and intangible assets, see the associated book by Gordon V. Smith and Russell L. Parr. This text has everything you are looking for and this book is unnecessary.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Good quick Introduction, 2001-03-18
This book has its good points and its bad points. The good thing is that it is very well written, concise and easy to read. It brings important points to light and is a good start at dealing with a large complex issue. The bad aspect is that the book tends to rely on the experience of the author in developing the models that are at the heart of the book, rather on validated and tested truths. A good place to start....
46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
An invaluable introduction to IC Management, 2000-07-17
"In 1999, CEO Magazine and Arthur Andersen hosted a roundtable luncheon for CEOs interested in discussing intellectual capital (IC) and its impact on the firm as we know it. The luncheon drew 17 CEOs representing both manufacturing and service industry companies. All were intrigued by the potential hidden value that the intellectual capital perspective suggests lies untapped within their businesses, but none knew what kinds of value they could obtain from their company's intangible assets or how they might go about it. They just knew that there was hidden value in their companies and that it was somehow wrapped up in the thoughts, skills, innovations, and abilities of their employees. They wanted to learn more about this value: how to harness it, direct it, and extract value from it. This book is written for those CEOs and for anyone else who wants to know how to extract the hidden value that resides within the firm's intellectual capital. As of this writing dozens of firms actively engage in extracting value from their IC. The people directing the activities for these firms have formed a community (called the ICM Gathering) to share their ideas and success stories. With the expectation of a very few proprietary bits of information that could be useful to competitors, these firms are willing to share their knowledge, and this book draws heavily on their experiences. The purpose of this book is to help businesses profit from one of their most important assets, their intellectual capital" (from the Introduction pp.3-4).
In this context, Patrick H. Sullivan divides his book into three major parts as follows:
I. The Relationship Between Intellectual Capital and Corporate Value (Chapters 1-4). In this part, he basically:
* defines and discusses intellectual capital and its importance, and outlines some of the basic concepts underlying corporate value.
* describes a three-dimensional IC framework that reveals the IC aspect of the firm, and outlines the four key elements of the IC framework.
* discusses the kinds of value that intellectual capital provides to the firm, including direct and indirect, offensive and defensive, and internal and external value.
* discusses the ways managers may determine which activities are required to produce the firm's anticipated IC value.
II. Valuing Knowledge Companies (Chapters 5-7). In this part, he basically:
* discusses the concepts that underlie determining the amount of value that intellectual capital has for an organization.
* discusses the quantitative value of knowledge companies in two different kinds of situations: the value as a going concern (the stock market value), and the value in a merger or acquisition scenario.
* discusses the following questions: When determining how much to pay for a knowledge company being acquired, how does the potential purchaser make the calculation? Is the frame of reference an accounting or financial one? Or is it an intellectual capital one?
III. Managing Intellectual Capital (Chapters 8-12). In this part, he basically:
* describes the key elements involved in extracting value from intellectual property, including key decisions and decision-making processes, including who is involved, what information is needed by the decision-makers, what work processes are necessary to provide this information, what databases are needed to store the information, and how each decision will be implemented.
* discusses the similarities and the differences between intellectual property and intellectual asset and the implications this has for the intellectual capital management process.
* describes the relationship between knowledge, knowledge types, and intellectual capital, and introduces the relationship between knowledge and profits, the concept of value creation and value extraction.
* discusses management of the firm's core human capital and how they may be best employed.
* identifies the steps required of companies that want to implement and intellectual capital management capability.
In addition to these three parts, to reinforce the reader's knowledge, he discusses basic intelectual capital management (ICM) concepts and definitions, and provides a brief overview of the evolution of ICM as a working discipline in the appendix.
I highly recommend this invaluable study to all executives and HR practitioners.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A great place to start, 2000-07-07
I found this book very helpful for people in organizations that are complex. For small companies, sometimes we take for granted that managing human capital can be as easy as yelling over the top of a cube wall, and that applying for a patent can be amonumental achievement. But in companies where these things are routine, and systematic approaches are needed, Sullivan seems to present some credible, sound logic towards hot to approach these problems. This is not a how-to book, but returns to business management fundamentals to lay the ground work for an approach. There are no how-to books in this field, but this is an area that requires thought by readers, and Sullivan doesn't presume to know all the answers and detail. I have already applied many of the principles he presents in this book in my own company.
15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
Value-Driven IC, 2000-07-02
This was an extremely disappointing book. Given Dr Sullivan's credentials, I was disgusted with the lack of substance within the book. For example, having stated that Financial analysts heve not given sufficient thought to developing a valuation approach to knowledge companies, and that the presented framework can be used in IC valuation, I didn't expect to be presented with several pages of "Price is the amount a purchaser is willing to pay..Cost is the amount of money required to produce an item." Believe it or not, most of us knew this already.
Be prepared for plenty of insightful and leading edge pearls of wisdom: "Parents are often asked by their child 'How much do you love me?' ..tends to fall back on answers like 'A lot!'. The point is that some things, even very important ones like love, do not lend themselves to accurate or quantifiable measurement."
It appears that Dr Sullivan didn't have anything knew to contribute and filled the book any way he could.
To assume that the book is providing anything useful to semi-educated personnel is merely patronising.