Culture and intellectual capital management: a key factor in successful ICM implementation

National culture and organisational culture can have a profound impact on the way in which organisations choose to manage themselves. This paper provides an introductory discussion of the relationship between intellectual capital management (ICM) and reporting and three national cultures - Canada, USA and Sweden. Six company cases are presented: Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada, Royal Bank, Dow Chemical, IBM, Celemi and Skandia. The case studies reveal that both national culture and organisational culture affect the successful implementation of ICM. Furthermore, culture appears to play a major role in whether ICM information remains proprietary (USA) or is disseminated to a larger audience (Sweden).