The influence of intellectual capital on innovativeness and growth in tourism SMEs: empirical evidence from Slovenia and Croatia

The innovative capability of an organisation depends on the intellectual capital that it possesses. Our research attempts to examine the influence individual intellectual capital components have on the innovativeness and consequent growth of a company. This article proposes a classification and measurement method of intellectual capital, highlighting the following three components; human capital, organisational capital, and social capital. Our aim is to explain innovation performance and company growth by showing the importance of each intellectual capital dimension on a specific type of innovation (product, process, marketing, and organisational). To this end, a questionnaire survey was performed on 2800 Slovenian and 1700 Croatian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism area. A data sample of 359 companies was analysed using SPSS 19 and the EQS 6 statistical programme to employ multivariate data analyses techniques through developed hypotheses.