دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی سرمایه فکری در حمایت از مدیریت استراتژیک کسب و کار مزرعه - امرالد 2018

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of and relationships between human, structural and relational capital assets for strategic management in a farm business. In particular, it analyzes the interaction between human capital’s creativity skills and the introduction of climate-smart technologies for the competitiveness of the firm. Design/methodology/approach – An explorative case study was conducted on one of the largest Italian farm businesses to gain an understanding of the drivers of intellectual capital (IC) and of their implications for strategic management. Full-time employees’ perception of the skills required to achieve strategic goals and their perception of whether they possessed these abilities were investigated to determine if an alignment was present. The skills were subsequently classified using the framework of Amabile (1988) into domain-relevant and creativity-relevant skills. Then, two linear regression models were used to investigate the effects of training on the acquisition of these two sets of skills. Findings – The analysis confirmed the strategic role of interactions among human capital assets to effectively exploit the structural capital of the company. When investigating employees’ perceptions, a gap emerged about informatics capabilities and knowledge of soils. As the company’s investments in innovation are oriented to ICT technologies, the company could strengthen informatics training to enable its employees to implement effective innovation. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the literature on IC by highlighting the role of interconnections of assets to align organizations with their strategic goals. Therefore, the provision of IC accounting contributes to the strategic management of human capital.

9. Conclusion

This study represented an attempt to investigate the role of IC within organizations (Guthrie and Dumay, 2015; Mouritsen, 2006), investigating the combinations of corporate resources, and tangible and intangible factors that affect value creation (Lev and Daum, 2004). From the study, it emerged that the development of human capital was considered essential to the effective use of the structural innovations introduced by the firm. Employees’ self-assessment was also performed and combined with the firm’s future strategical development of human capital competences, in line with the call of scholars to use IC accounting for strategic purposes in the agricultural sector (Kozera, 2011), and to contribute to management and reporting activities (Guthrie et al., 2012; Mouritsen et al., 2001). Regression analysis showed that training was already contributing to the development of employees’ creativity skills (Amabile, 1988), and from interviews held with top and middle management, it was clear that employees’ education was considered relevant to effectively exploit the firm’s innovative potential. In line with previous studies (Huffman, 2001; Läpple et al., 2015; Toma et al., 2016), farmers’ capability to adopt and exploit innovation was dependent on the level of education provided by the company’s training sessions. By contrast, a linear regression of the effects of training on the acquisition of domain-relevant skills was not solid, and a deeper examination of the data suggested that domain competences can be acquired from a combination of training and experience matured over time. Thus, further research should construct regression models on the basis of these results. Moreover, experience matured in the agricultural field can also be tested in combination with training for the acquisition of creativity-relevant skills, as in this case study the analysis was not performed.