Faculty
HA

Course Coordinator
Dr Jan Mouritsen

Students should have had prior courses in one or more of the following: economics, management, strategy, marketing, finance, international business, or human resource management.

Why do some companies find unconventional, yet highly profitable, business niches that other companies completely overlook? Why are some cities able to create highly profitable brands while others stagnate despite expensive marketing campaigns? And why do some individuals have success in marketing radically new products and services while most others fail?

Answers to such questions often lie in the ways that intangible assets are managed. Intangible assets – hidden sources of value creation – are typically not given systematic attention in management and planning. As a result, these assets are under-utilized or ignored. Without a clear understanding of how these assets can operate as value-drivers, individuals, organizations and cities may not effectively capture the value that they can offer.

This course aims to answer the question How do intangibles actually create value? The intention is to try to address the management challenge posed by the limitations to our understanding of how intangibles actually function in different contexts so that they can be managed as effectively well as possible. It will follow a very practical approach to structuring thinking about intangibles based on seven “intangible value streams” that can help an organization to sustain its current operations and to build its future business prospects. Various theoretical lenses will be introduced to reveal features of intangibles that would otherwise remain invisible. In this course a range of international cases and examples will be examined to identify specific ways in which intangible resources can help in resolving problems and in responding to opportunities. Classes will include a stimulating mix of mini-lectures, group case analyses, and group discussions with guest speakers to lead discussions on several key topics.

The aim of this course is to allow students to gain exposure to, and build expertise in, developing and deploying intangible resources to create value. Students can expect to learn the basic concepts and theories as well as to gain insights about best practices in the real world. It is hoped that students will uncover a core of common practices related to intangibles management that can form the basis for highly practical theoretical frameworks without which it is often difficult to identify and utilize their intangible sources of value creation most effectively in the interests of creating value.

At the end of the course the student should be able to manage competently the following objectives:

Learning Objective 1: To explain clearly how intangible resources can be used to create value by drawing on a wide range of international examples. [Understand empirical work on the subject]

Learning Objective 2: To discuss knowledgably all key concepts, theories, models and frameworks that can be used in the analysis of intangible resources. [Understand theoretical foundations to the subject]

Learning Objective 3: To design and implement practical strategies for creating value through investments in intangible resources based on rigorous and systematic analysis of a variety of real-world cases. [Understand practical approaches to strategy design and implementation related to the subject]

To obtain a score of 12 in this course a student must master the three learning objectives to an exceptional level with lower scores awarded in accordance with reductions in the levels of mastery.

Individual oral examination based on a prepared assignment.

DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) (2001),Creating value from your intangible assets: Unlocking your true potential.

Lev, Baruch (2001), Intangibles: Management, measurement and reporting. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, Chapter 1 – What. Why, and Who? and Chapter 2 - The Economics of Intangibles.

Wearing, Robert (2005), Cases in corporate governance, London: Sage Publications. Chapter 7 – Enron and Chapter 8 – Parmalat.

Mouritsen, Jan, Bukh, Per Nikolaj and Marr, Bernard (2004), “Reporting on intellectual capital: why, how and what? Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 46-54.

Kaplan, Robert S. and Norton, David P. (2004), “Measuring the strategic readiness of intangible assets,” Harvard Business Review, February, pp. 52-63.

Ulrich, Dave and Smallwood, Norm (2004), “Capitalizing on capabilities,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, Issue 6, pp. 119-127.

Case studies: Zara: A cut apart from the competition [Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne 2009].

Kimberley Clark Andean Region: Creating a winning culture [Stanford Graduate School of Business 2009].

Keeping Google “Googley” [Harvard Business School 2009].