Assessing the Effect of Intellectual Capital on New Product Development (Case Study: Pharmaceutical Industry of Isfahan Province)

Abstract

Among the intangible assets, intellectual capital is the crucial capital for business performance and product development in companies. The purpose of this study is to determine to what extent, new product development influence by intellectual capital (IC) in Isfahan pharmaceutical firms. IC is a concept that comprises of three elements: human capital, structural capital and customer capital. Sample population of this study is among the product managers, research and development and laboratory employees of pharmaceutical firms of Isfahan that comprises of 91 persons sample populations. Method used in this study is survey-descriptive and for data collecting, Bontis standard questionnaire was used. Then data analyzed with PLS software (Next generation of Structural Equation Modeling). Finding shows that structural capital of Isfahan pharmaceutical firms has the most effect on new product development. Human capital has the most effect on structural capital. Human capital doesn’t have the meaningful effect on new product development. This study suggests the managers of these firms to reinforce innovative behavior of their employees. R2 statistic of whole model shows that generally new product development derives from IC about 34.8% in pharmaceutical firms of Isfahan.
Key words: Intellectual capital; New product development; Partial least square method