Assessing the Intellectual and Knowledge Based Assets of Organizations: Case of Global Oil and Gas Operations Firms

Intellectual and knowledge based assets, as the elements of intellectual capital (IC) are key aspects of competitiveness in all types of firms in today’s knowledge economy. A huge portion of these assets are driven or supported by Information Systems (IS). The technological changes that occurred in the past few decades in how information is created, captured, and used in organizations has driven this paradigm shift in favor of those who capitalize on it the best. We examine to what level the top global oil and gas firms are using IC to gain competitiveness and how effective they are in doing so. The results indicate that higher levels of IC are associated with higher financial performance. By providing empirical evidence linking IC to performance, this research highlights the importance and need for developing IC within these organizations and the potential role of information systems and knowledge assets for achieving it