Intangible cultural heritage (see Wiki page for definition) is summarised as the ‘living heritage’ of national culture; the oral tradition. The treasured way of preserving one’s national culture is in stark contrast to the difficulty of passing on healthy organisational cultures, which have so much influence on the success and survival of companies in the market.
Much has been written about the influence of national culture and cross-cultural influence on globalized companies (see for example key culture writers like Hofstede, Tropenaars and Friedman). The link of one’s heritage and underlying assumptions to organsiational performance per se has held bread and butter money for generations of business consultants, HR professionals and psychologists. (more…)
Accounting terminology describes ‘goodwill’ as that part of business value over and above the value of identifiable business assets.
Business goodwill is a key intangible asset that represents the portion of the business value that cannot be attributed to other business assets.
(Btw: For a quick definition on institutional, professional, practice and practitioner goodwill, see for example here or Wikipedia.)
IA’s are according to this:
- Intangible assets can be identified and described. They must be a specific property, not an idea.
- Intangible assets are legal property. Just as tangible assets, the owners can assert their legal rights to and defend their possession of intangible assets.
- Ownership of intangible assets can be transferred. For example, the owners can sell them or give them away.
- Evidence of intangible existence. Documentation is a typical way to establish that. Examples are customer lists, blueprints, contract documents, software source code printouts.
- Intangible assets have a life span.
Why is it locked out of the definition of an intangible asset when all you have to do is follow through with this logic and place ‘idea’ in the above bullet points? So tell me, what did my last idea not do to increase business value?
I carried it around, I gave it to somebody, I wrote it down, it got me a good reputation, I was paid for it and in the end it might be a good one to keep for solving a specific problem in the organisation later on. A bit of goodwill, anyone?
