A Framework to Audit Intellectual Capital

Until recently few firms have attempted to measure and assess Knowledge, the new intangible. Previous research shows that key components of intellectual capital are poorly understood, inadequately identified, inefficiently managed and inconsistently reported. Two types of audit are available: auditing by competence, and auditing individual or a spectrum of items. There are several methods for auditing these types, and selection depends both on the type of audit, and whether the aim is to quantify monetarily, to make comparisons, or to set benchmarks. A better way to approach the audit is to combine more than one method and audit object, so that any limitations imposed by one are compensated for by the other.