A new measurement of intellectual capital and its impact on innovation performance in an open innovation paradigm

Companies have traditionally considered innovation an internal process, and accordingly, they have relied on their internal intellectual capital. However, this closed innovation strategy has, in recent years, been superseded by an open innovation strategy. The existing measurement model of intellectual capital, which is concerned mainly with an internal dimension, is no longer appropriate for open innovation practice. To address this challenge, this paper reconstructs the measurement model of intellectual capital, expanding the concept to include both internal and external dimensions, both of which have the same three elements: human, structural, and relationship capital. To test the reliability and validity of this new model, we explore the impact of each element on innovation performance through an empirical study of 149 companies in China, and we find that all elements of internal and external intellectual capital have a significantly positive impact on innovation performance. This implies that our new measurement is appropriate for firms with an increasing degree of openness for innovation.