The Study of Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Organizational Performance (A Case Study in National Iranian Gas Company)

With the rise of the ‘innovative era’, knowledge has become the most valuable economic resource. Only knowledge provides the opportunity to improve the wealth of nations, the growth of organizations and the value of individuals. In 21st century knowledge and intangible assets (Intellectual capital) are known as most important competitive advantage of organizations, therefore this issue has created a new research and study area. Previous studies demonstrate that intellectual capital is positively and significantly associated with organizational performance. Because of the importance of this issue, in this research relationship between elements of intellectual capital (i.e. human capital, structural capital and relational capital) and its impact on organizational performance in National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) has been investigated. To achieve this purpose, a questionnaire consisting of 67 items was designed for the elements of intellectual capital. Model development and hypothesis testing was conducted using Partial Least Squares (PLS) on a sample of 142 respondents from NIGC and affiliated companies. The analysis of data based on structural equation modeling revealed that there were relatively strong correlations among the elements of intellectual capital. Also structural capital is positively associated with organizational performance, but the relational capital has no impact on the organizational performance of NIGC.