Measuring And Reporting Of Intellectual Capital In The Health Care Sector Of Albania

Abstract

Intellectual capital is recognized as the most valuable resource of an organization and the fundamental issue to its success or failure, whereas it is also acknowledged as the most important source of organizations' competitive advantage. Intellectual capital is a combination of human capital, organizational capital and relational capital. Human capital refers to the knowledge that belongs to the employees of an organization (including employees collective competences, capabilities and brainpower), while structural capital refers to that knowledge which is created by the human capital that belongs to the organization ( in the form of quality and reach of IT systems, company images, hardware, software, databases, organizational structure, patents and trademarks). The effective coordination between structural and human capital, makes i possible that a company develops good relations with its stakeholders in the form of relational capital (which is the knowledge embedded in the relationships of an organization with its customers, suppliers, stakeholders and strategic alliance partners). The aim of this study is to determine the general attitude of the health care center’ managers and doctors to the intellectual capital assets in Albania. Besides, another aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that “the level of intellectual capital concept recognition and application of executives between private and public institutions is different. In order to reach the aim of the study a survey has been made, to six health care institutions in Albania, five in Tirana which is the capital city of Albania and one in Durres, which is the second biggest city in Albania. In total 60 questionnaires were distributed to the health care institutions (managers and doctors), 30 to the private and 30 to the public institutions respectively. The 5-point likert scale questionnaire was composed of 20 questions: 7 questions measuring human capital, 7 questions measuring organizational capital and 6 questions measuring relational capital. According to my researches made in this field, it is the first time that a research about Intellectual capital is conducted in Albania, which is one of the main reasons why this topic was chosen, hoping that it will create a path for future researches.