Glossary

Activity Based Costing(ABC):
Arguably, ABC is the very first quantitative management method. It was worked on by early pioneers such as Peter Turney of the Portland State University who wrote “Common Cents” in the late 1980s and defined more authoritatively by Robert Kaplan & Robin Cooper of the Harvard University in “Cost & Effect” (Harvard Business School Press). Essentially ABC is a management accounting discipline that converts departmentalized accounting costs into process costs (i.e. costs that, in reality, cut across departments). ABC reveals the true cost incurred by products and services and Activity Based Costing & Management (ABCM) uses these true accounting costs to manage the activities of companies at operational and strategic levels. ABC as an enterprise management method was taken to its height in the USA, Europe and Australia by ABC Technologies, a small software company based in Oregon, USA. However, the movement has lost much of its pioneering steam since ABC Technologies was acquired by a competitor. Reference website: http://www.cam-i.org/.

Balanced Scorecard (BSC):
Prof. Kaplan extended his research on ABC to invent the now famous quantitative management term in the book of the same name “Balanced Scorecard” (Harvard Press, 1996) which he co-authored with David Norton. Kaplan & Norton argues that the performance of companies cannot be measured by historical “Financial Performance” alone. Three other perspectives: “Internal Business Process”, “Customer” & “Learning & Growth” that are better able to reflect the future performance of companies were introduced. The Balanced Scorecard is closely related to ICM as Kaplan and Norton discussed the “intangible factors” of company performance and economic development in their BSC book series (“The Strategy-Focused Organization”, “Strategy Maps”, “Alignment”, etc). At a practical level, Balanced Scorecard can be extended to measure how well companies are managing their Intellectual Capital Management (ICM) processes.

Creative Economy:
Please refer to Creative Economy under “Subjects”.

Customer Capital:
Closely related to “Network Capital” which is a part of Intangible Capital owned by companies and the “Customer” perspective of Kaplan & Norton’s Balanced Scorecard. Customer Relations Management (CRM) refers to the business strategy (and software products) based on selecting and extracting most values from customer relationships.

Future Centre:
Please refer to Future Centre under “Subjects”.

Innovation:
Creation and deployment of something that is new or different. “Creative” is often defined as the association of two (or more) previously unassociated ideas. The innovation process in business and industry is often closely managed by the Intellectual Capital Management (ICM) process and guarded by the Intellectual Property Management (IPM) process.

 Intangible Capital/Intangible Assets:
The non-financial and non-physical resources of organizations. “Intangibles” are further classified as “Human Capital”, “Network Capital” and “Structural Capital” in ICM. Please also refer to “What is ICM” under “Subjects”.

Intellectual Assets/Intellectual Assets Management (IAM):
Please refer to IAM under “Subjects”.

Intellectual Property/Intellectual Property Rights (IP/IPR):
Intellectual Properties are the legally protected Intellectual Assets (IA) and Intellectual Capitals (IC). IPR are the legal rights associated with IPs. Please also refer to IPR Management under “Subjects”.

Knowledge Economy:
An economy where knowledge plays an important role in the creation of wealth. Please also refer to “Creative Economy” under “Subjects”.

Knowledge Enhanced Government:
A government-wide policy framework for use of knowledge.

Knowledge Management:
An almost interchangeable term for Intellectual Capital Management (ICM). Please refer to “Knowledge Management” under “Subjects”.

Organisational Learning:
An area within organizational theory that studies how organizations learn collectively.

Record Management/Record and Information Management (RM/RIM):
The process of capturing what an organization does and did through records such as files, memos, contracts and reports. The Government Records Services of the HKSAR Government is a unit under the Administrative Wing of the Chief Secretary of Administration’s office. In mainland China, the State Archives Administration manages state records http://www.saac.gov.cn/.

Structural Capital:
An interchangeable term for Intellectual Assets (IA), it is the captured and recorded knowledge of companies. It includes technology, practices, organization structure, patents, copyrights etc. Please also refer to “Intellectual Assets Management” under “Subjects”.

Tacit Knowledge:
Knowledge that people and teams carry in their mind and difficult to access. Once codified (documented) and shared, tacit knowledge becomes explicit knowledge and an Intellectual Assets of companies. All non-recorded tacit knowledge in organisations represents at one and the same time an opportunity and a risk factor.

TRIZ:
Russian Acronym for “The Theory of Inventor’s Problems Solving” invented by Genrich Altshuller in 1946. Unlike other creative process (e.g. braining storming) which use random thinking (or “Right Brain Thinking”), TRIZ is an algorithmic (logical or “Left Brain Thinking”) approach to innovation and invention. TRIZ is now in the public domain and the most promising application of TRIZ is in the tracking and management of patents in the “Supply Chain Management” process.