Intellectual capital and the 'capable firm': narrating, visualising and numbering for managing knowledge

Intellectual capital statements are 'new' forms of reporting whose object i s knowledge management activities. Based on 17 firms' work to develop intel lectual capital statements, this paper analyses them as managerial technolo gies making knowledge amenable to intervention. Aspects of actor-network-th eory are mobilised to suggest that the intellectual capital statement is a centre of translation, which mobilises knowledge management via three inter related elements: knowledge narratives, visualisations and numbers. Intelle ctual capital statements report on the mechanisms put in place to make know ledge manageable. Writing intellectual capital is a local story, which ofte n concerns making knowledge collective and a process of allowing it to be o riented towards organisational ends. In such a story, knowledge is about a firm's capabilities and abilities to make a difference to a user. When writ ing an intellectual capital statement, firms locate employees, customers, p rocesses and technologies and orient them towards a user. However, the stat ement as such is a means of 'dis-locating' knowledge resources making them amenable to intervention. There are certain broad types of intervention tha t allows a classification of strategies of intervention to be proposed. The se terms are portfolio management, improvement activities and productivity. Such forms of intervention circumscribe the aspiration to transform knowle dge from something internal to the person into something that is the effect of a collective arrangement. They allow-through intellectual capital state ments-the dark, tacit knowing of individuals to come into the open space of calculation and action at a distance. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Scien ce Ltd.