Knowledge, Intellectual Capital, and Protection: A Literature Review

This literature review will examine the connection between knowledge management and KM systems with organizational intellectual capital and property. Organizations are collecting, storing, and manipulating knowledge to accomplish their assigned tasks on a daily basis. Organizations can also examine this knowledge as being intellectual capital. This paper reviews the concepts of knowledge serving as intellectual capital, security and approaches toward estimating the value of the capital, and provides a perspective of the current literature. Through the analysis, common themes were identified across three categories including Cultural, Enterprise, and Information Infrastructure which contribute to the understanding of how knowledge management systems impact organizational structures. Further studies are needed to provide guidance on identifying which knowledge can be established as intellectual capital and how to estimate value of such knowledge.