INTRODUCTION

Even though the term ‘intellectual capital’1 has existed for almost 50 years and that since the XVII Century there has been empirical evidence over its relevance in the performance of organizations, it has only been in the last 15 years that studies on the subject have become more frequent (STEWART, 1998 :XVI; STEWART, 2001: XIV). The growing interest over the subject coincides with the deep transformations in world economy through which we have been going in recent decades. As services take a highly determining role in World’s economy, the traditional view, current since the industrial revolution, which considers ‘work and capital’ as the main production factors to determine corporation wealth, has to be widen up (ANDRIENSEN, 2004 :5). In fact, performance of most companies is increasingly based on the intellectual capital, since value comes from activities linked to information processing, development and knowledge transfer and application (TEECE, 1998 :75 ; FIRER and WILLIANS, 2003 :348). Corporate value creation nowadays is grounded on proprietary standards and methods, copyright, patents, customer, supplier, and partner relationships, marks and reputation, as well as other intangible factors. The nature of competitive advantage has turned from the physical to the intangible.