National Intellectual Capital and the Financial Crisis in Israel, Jordan, South Africa, and Turkey

Carol Yeh-Yun Lin, Leif Edvinsson, Jeffrey Chen, Tord Beding

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the biggest event of worldwide proportion was the 2008 global financial crisis, which was caused primarily by ineffective governance, failed surveillance systems, and implementation flaws. While fiscal and monetary policies succeeded in pulling many countries out of a financial freefall, most economies have performed beneath pre-recession levels as governments continued to struggle with their finances. Examining the financial crisis from the viewpoint of intangible assets provides a different perspective from traditional economic approaches. National Intellectual Capital (NIC), comprised mainly of human capital, market capital, process capital, renewal capital, and financial capital, is a valuable intangible asset and a key source of national competitive advantage in todays knowledge economy. The authorspioneers in the fieldpresent...