The Social Dynamics of Generating and Leveraging Intellectual Capital for Innovation

This paper explores the factors influencing an enterprise's ability to generate and deploy intellectual capital in support of its strategic intent to innovate. Drawing on two research projects, we focus upon the leadership practices that enable an enterprise to innovatively leverage the intellectual capital that is potentially available to it. One project, using a phenomenological methodology, explores, at a high level, the social dynamics within twenty-five medium-sized enterprises noted for their innovative capabilities, in Sydney, Australia. The other project explores in finer detail, through an action research methodology, the transformation of stakeholder relationships within another medium-sized Sydney enterprise that has become highly innovative over the past five years. Our findings show that the most important forms of intangible capital for innovation are relationship-based and are leveraged through stakeholder collaboration.