Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

4.2 Scenario <strong>of</strong> a roundtrip concatenation
Eckhard Ammann
Roundtrip concatenations are closed paths <strong>of</strong> operator application as introduced in section 3.2.3. An
important subclass <strong>of</strong> those roundtrips, where a first phase <strong>of</strong> downward operator application is
followed by a second, but not necessarily inverse, phase <strong>of</strong> upward movement in <strong>the</strong> IC space
towards IC origin.
In our scenario, we step down <strong>the</strong> IC space with <strong>the</strong> sequence Ind -> Res -> Ref first, to individually
view <strong>the</strong> “Satisfaction” variable <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> “Values and attitudes” element in <strong>the</strong> human capital domain in a
certain business unit. Having worked on <strong>the</strong> variable (e.g. by improving <strong>the</strong> individual indicator
“Benefit by Employee”), we first enlarge <strong>the</strong> viewpoint to regard all employees in <strong>the</strong> company, <strong>the</strong>n
generalize (consolidate) to an overall “Satisfaction” view within this business unit, before finally we
coarse to gain <strong>the</strong> overall company-wide viewpoint. Again we use <strong>the</strong> concepts <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Intellectus
Model in this scenario. We can model this scenario with <strong>the</strong> roundtrip concatenation
Ind -> Res -> Ref -> Enl -> Gen -> Coa ( == id).
A visualization <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> roundtrip path through <strong>the</strong> IC space is given in Figure 4.
Figure 4: A roundtrip path
5. Summary and conclusion
A modeling approach for intellectual capital advancement is given, which is based on a set <strong>of</strong>
operators in <strong>the</strong> Intellectual Capital space. Applying <strong>the</strong> operators provides suitable perspectives <strong>of</strong>
granularity in an organization (modeled as points in <strong>the</strong> IC space), where advancement measures can
be taken. On <strong>the</strong> operational level, this comes down to knowledge development. Using <strong>the</strong> inverse
operators in a second phase leads to <strong>the</strong> advanced overall IC statement <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> organization.
The modeling approach is based on <strong>the</strong> Intellectus Model (while does not depend on this choice).
Several scenarios are provided, which indicate <strong>the</strong> applicability <strong>of</strong> this approach, among <strong>the</strong>se
hierarchical, symmetric, and roundtrip paths in <strong>the</strong> IC space, toge<strong>the</strong>r with <strong>the</strong>ir interpretations in <strong>the</strong>
organizational context.
This modeling approach provides a structured view <strong>of</strong> all possible IC viewpoints <strong>of</strong> a company, from
<strong>the</strong> overall perspective to very specific considerations <strong>of</strong> single assets. The model allows for a
systematic localization <strong>of</strong> viewpoints as well as for a well-defined path towards it. There, development
activities can be started, improving <strong>the</strong> situation at this viewpoint.
39