Intellectual capital and value creation: an analysis from the business model theory within a process approach

The study aimed to understand the intellectual capital role in the value creation process, by connecting it with the business model theory that shows how a company creates, delivers and captures value. To perform this, a new conceptual model has been developed in order to integrate the three intellectual capital dimension (human, structural and relational) guiding them to the value creation process. This model was empirically applied to a mobile value added service (VAS) company, through a single case study that analysed a period of 15 years, noting in this phase, the existence of six different business model and consequently six different intellectual capital performances oriented to create, deliver and capture value for the company. The main findings reveal that human, structural and relational dimensions are substantially integrated into existing macro dimensions of business model theory and are unable to create value, when worked in isolated way. Besides, it is also observed that this three-dimension may work with different importance degree in the value creation process over time. In this study, it was found that the human and structural dimensions were very important to the early business models, and the relational dimension is extremely relevant for continued organisational growth in the future.