Investigating intellectual capital dynamics: a field study

Moving from the studies on intellectual capital dynamic (Kianto, 2007) and from call for case studies on intellectual capital ‘in practice’ (Dumay, 2009; Guthrie et al., 2012; Marr and Chatzkel, 2004), the purpose of this study is to investigate IC dynamics ‘in vivo’, focusing on how it is conceived and on the accounting changes that its management implies. This study is based on a field study developed adopting a participant observation approach. The main results are the followings. First, even if the three conceptions of dynamics are generally proposed in literature as separable concepts, in practice, they co-exist and interact. Second, approaching IC dynamics can lead to technical and substantial accounting changes.