Intellectual capital: origin and evolution

This paper presents a history of the development of intellectual capital. The paper traces the origins of intellectual capital to the economists of the 1930s and shows how the concept of resources as the critical element in companies developed. The paper charts the development of resource-based accounting in the two key periods of the 1950s and 1980-1990s. In parallel it shows how intellectual capital as a practically oriented concept grew in two areas in the late 1980s into a perspective on management that dominated within a span of ten years. Finally, the paper assesses the current positions and highlights issues which need to be addressed to maintain the momentum