Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st-Century Organization.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief article - Book review

By Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak. Praeger, 188 pages. $34.95.

This is a serious book about a serious subject. Authors Michael Adams and Mary Oleksak argue that most companies are still valuing assets by the old rules--including age-old accounting standards--and failing to realize that their "knowledge factory" will determine their company's future success.

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Former bankers, the authors are co-founders of Trek Consulting, a Massachusetts-based management consulting firm specializing in intellectual capital issues. This knowledge factory, they write, isn't just accreted company lore, but an "invisible production facility" that "converts raw knowledge into scalable and repeatable processes that create value for [a company's] customers ..."

The authors posit that the great recession has posed new and more profound challenges that will require leveraging the intangible capital of American...