Construction Firms’ Intellectual Capital in Southeast Mexico

Abstract

Knowledge is currently an important element for most companies and constitutes an intangible asset that can generate profits and competitive advantages. Intellectual Capital is conformed with the accumulation of explicit knowledge that is generated from capitalization of knowledge and experiences of the company’s personnel. In the construction industry, this capital has not been given enough importance, so its potential has not been fully exploited; the lack of memory in construction firms causes that in many occasions the same project’s errors are repeated out in another one, and this derives in profit loss. The aim of this work was to measure the Intellectual Capital of a leading construction companies group in the southeast of Mexico, to assess their weaknesses and good practices. The methodology consisted in the application of a questionnaire to employees at operational and managerial levels; this instrument was organized into two sections, one to measure Human Capital and another to measure Structural Capital, and was developed based on a system of indicators that have already been used in other industries internationally. Results showed that most of their Intellectual Capital is made up of the skills, knowledge and experience of their staff and it is not appreciated that they are carrying out sufficient actions to convert such knowledge into organizational knowledge, so these firms could lose competitiveness in globalized market.