Investigating the Barriers of Using Intellectual Capital Concepts

This paper seeks to find answers for the question “What are the barriers to mainstream use of IC concepts?” regarding the fact that the legitimacy of IC as a concept is threatened because in practice there is little empirical evidence to show that firms are using the concept of IC as a management technology to drive value creation in the new economy. A review of the existing IC literature has been done and three main barriers have been proposed including: The lack of generic IC theories, Shortcomings of the seminal theories (including market to book ratios and IC disclosure), and Measurement issues. Each of the barriers has been briefly discussed and concluding remarks have been made at the end of the paper.