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Towards an econophysics view of intellectual capital dynamics: from self-organized criticality to the stochastic frontier

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Knowledge Management Research & Practice

Abstract

The paper begins with research studying the concept and nature of Intellectual Capital (IC), as well as how close IC firms are to the stochastic frontier. Then basic concepts of complexity theory – such as agents, self-organized criticality (SOC), connectivities, fractals, and power laws (PLs) – are used to distinguish between two kinds of IC firms’ success: traditional SOC applications to how firms maintain their position in a changing industry vs. how an IC firm (such as Apple) creates a new stochastic frontier. The research sets up PLs as indicators of whether or not firms and industries are SOC-effective and includes propositions about: (1) How IC firms benefit from complexity dynamics and SOC; (2) How PL distributions are indicators of efficacious SOC and adaptivity; and (3) Why IC attributes serve to create more transient dynamics pertaining to the stochastic frontier and the rest of the industry's rank/frequency distribution.

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Notes

  1. Bak (1996) uses ‘self-organized criticality’ to refer to how a system constantly adapts so as to maintain a continuing efficaciously adaptive functional state in changing circumstances.

  2. ‘Agent’ is a term in complexity science and agent-based computational modeling that can refer to entities such as cells, DNA molecules, organs, people, groups, departments, organizations, industries, cities, and societies.

  3. Correlation between PL and straight line is 0.984. Data are Dow Jones stock market prices in 1960. Firms include AT&T, GM, IBM, Standard Oil, Du Pont, and GE.

  4. The label ‘butterfly event’ comes from the title of a famous paper by Edward Lorenz (1972): ‘Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?’ Paper presented at the 1972 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Euromed Management School, Marseille, France

    Bill McKelvey

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

    Maria Paz Salmador, Patricio Morcillo & José Miguel Rodríguez-Antón

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  1. Bill McKelvey
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  2. Maria Paz Salmador
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  3. Patricio Morcillo
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  4. José Miguel Rodríguez-Antón
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Correspondence to Bill McKelvey.

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McKelvey, B., Salmador, M., Morcillo, P. et al. Towards an econophysics view of intellectual capital dynamics: from self-organized criticality to the stochastic frontier. Knowl Manage Res Pract 11, 142–161 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/kmrp.2013.18

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