Waikato University researcher ranks Manukau top
university-of-waikato
Thu Mar 08 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Waikato University researcher ranks Manukau top
Thursday, 8 March 2007, 4:36 pm
Press Release: University of Waikato
MEDIA RELEASE
Waikato University researcher ranks Manukau top in knowledge awareness
8 March 2007
Manukau City Council is riding the knowledge wave as top scorer in the first-ever survey of local authorities up and down the country to see how well they report their intellectual capital. Manukau achieved a 76% score in the disclosure index for providing information in its annual report on the knowledge held in its structures, processes and people.
The index was devised by Annika Schneider, a Masters student in accounting at the University of Waikato Management School. “Intellectual capital is the economic value of the knowledge and information held within an organisation,” she says. “With the global shift towards a knowledge economy, intellectual capital is becoming more and more important in wealth creation.”
Yet Schneider says there’s little research on measuring intellectual capital outside the corporate sector. “Local authorities are charged with contributing to and managing the wellbeing of their areas,” she says. “Ratepayers want to see how local government is using its knowledge and information to create value for the benefit of the community. But that information has not traditionally been part of financial reporting.”
Schneider’s index ranks 82 out of all 85 local authorities on disclosure of information about intellectual capital in each authority’s 2004/5 annual report. The index is based on 26 measures, weighted for their importance to stakeholders. They range from traditional intellectual capital items such as patents and copyright through to information on ratepayer satisfaction and the entrepreneurial innovativeness of employees.
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Top-ranking Manukau is followed by Manawatu, Rotorua and North Shore all with 70%. Auckland ranks ninth with 65%, Hamilton sits at 15th place with 63%, while Wellington languishes at 25th with just 53%. Bottom of the table is Whakatane, which scored 33%.
Schneider says her results show that larger local authorities with bigger revenue bases tended to disclose more information than smaller ones. But there’s a lot of confusion about what constitutes intellectual capital.
“One local authority (Wairoa) came back saying it had no intellectual capital at all,” she says (something she was happy to disprove). “And we found all local authorities consistently failed to disclose intellectual property and licensing agreements, which our stakeholder panel thought were very important.”
Other neglected aspects that stakeholders wanted to know more about were ratepayer demographics, entrepreneurial innovativeness and executive compensation plans.
Schneider’s supervisor at Waikato Management School, Dr Grant Samkin, says her findings show there’s a lack of understanding about intellectual capital. “It’s not just about brand names and copyright,” he says. “The corporate sector is starting to understand that intellectual capital is a wealth creator, but it’s hard to measure. Annika’s research lays the ground for a framework to measure intellectual capital in the public sector.”
ENDS
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