A qualitative study on the perception of intellectual capital among a group of senior managers of Italian social enterprises

The aim of this explorative research is to understand how senior management of Italian social enterprises perceive the role played by the inteletual capital within their organisations in generating knowledge and organisational growth. Semi-structured,in-depth interviews were individually conducted with 81 senior managers of Italian SEs. Interview data were analysed using different qualitative techniques: discourse analysis (performed by two independent judges) as well as content analysis, run through the T-Lab software (analysis of word occurrence and co-word mapping). Findings show that senior managers have a limited understanding of the IC concept of their own organisations as a generative intangible resource. The contents of their perception of IC is more related to the management of human resources and the activities performed by their organisations. Implications for scholars and pratictioners are discussed.