Today, Athena Alliance is releasing a new Policy Brief Intellectual Capital and Revitalizing Manufacturing which makes a number of recommendations to directly incorporate intellectual capital into a manufacturing strategy and best position the United States for accelerated job, productivity, and economic growth in the coming years.
The Policy Brief takes as its starting point the White House paper released last December -- A Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing. The Administration's Framework makes an excellent case that the federal government has a strong role to play in reinvigorating this important sector of the U.S. economy. It outlines the challenges facing manufacturing while describing the opportunities in new product areas. However, the ongoing transformation in manufacturing to a knowledge-intensive activity will require attention to all the inputs to the production process technology, worker skills, and organizational structures. The Framework recognizes that the nature of the economy has changed and implicitly accepts this basic premise. Intellectual capital, such as patents from research and development as well as managerial know-how, the document states, is a vital component in determining costs, growth rates and the creation of new industries. But while patents and managerial know-how are important components, a successful manufacturing framework must embrace the full range of intellectual capital and intangible assets.
The Policy Brief begin released today takes that extra step and provides specific recommendations as to how to include intellectual capital and intangible assets in the manufacturing framework. These include, among other things, programs to explicitly include intangible assets and intellectual capital management services and advice in MEP and SBA programs, use of intangible assets as collateral in SBA loans, and increased disclosure of intangible assets in company financial statements and in bank lending portfolios.
Intellectual capital and intangible assets are widely recognized as key drivers of economic value. The recommendations contained in the Policy Brief will help manufacturing firms better realize that value.
I hope you find the paper of interest. As usual, this and all of our previous publications can be found on our website at www.athenaalliance.org.
And don't forget our blog - The Intangible Economy at www.intangibleeconomy.org .
