Visualization of IC for improving green innovations in SMEs

Investments in sustainable practices, such as green innovations are expected to increase both an organization's long-term survival and its operational performance. Sustainable development of organizations is driven by organizations' ability to continuously exploit their base of or access to intellectual capital (IC)/ knowledge. Thus, organizations of each kind need to integrate the management of IC/knowledge into their overall strategic efforts. Taking the relevance of IC management for organizations' sustainability and growth intents, the visualization of IC should be a critical component of organizations' IC management. Against this background, the purpose of this chapter is to explore and discuss the benefits of IC visualization for sustainable development of organizations. More precisely, the focus is on IC visualization for green innovation activities in smaller companies. Smaller firms have been chosen because the resource constraints create unique challenges for both sustainability and growth. Based on a theoretical discussion a set of guidelines for improving green innovations in SMEs taking into account their IC is proposed.