Contoh Artikel SLR

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 153 (2020) 119917
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Technological Forecasting & Social Change
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techfore
Sustainable development, intellectual capital and technology policies: A

T
structured literature review and future research agenda
a a a, b
Giustina Secundo , Valentina Ndou , Pasquale Del Vecchio , Gianluigi De Pascale
a University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
b University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy
ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT
Keywords: This paper aims to provide a Structured Literature Review (SLR) about the strategic role of Intellectual Capital (IC)
Sustainability for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It offers an outline of past and present literature and frames
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a future research agenda. It analyses papers published in journals from 2003 – 2018 with the aim of deriving
Intellectual Capital significant insights about IC's determinants for achieving SDGs. Although empirical and theoretical studies have
Technology Policy
shown a positive relationship between IC and sustainability, the research remains an emerging area of growing
Structured Literature Review
importance. Although no explicit specialisation in the topic currently exists, findings highlight the “sustainability
imperative” and convergence toward the following research areas: IC components for Sustainable Development in
Private Sector, IC for Sustainable Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy, and IC for Sustainable
Development in the Public Sector. Discussions indicate that some SDGs are starting to be explored more than
others (e.g., quality education, infrastructure, health, cities and communities) and that only recently some studies
are specialising specifically in the importance of technology to address the SDGs. Implications for technology
policy have been highlighted to frame a future research agenda for academics and practitioners.
1. Introduction climate change, pollution, migration, ecosystem resilience, food se-

curity and many others that require a cross disciplinary perspective
The topic of sustainability and sustainable development has (Suciu and Nàsulea, 2019, page 73; Birtchnell et al., 2017).
recently gained importance on the agenda of academics and Within this debate, some scholars began to consider Intellectual
practitioners. This is due to the relevance and dissemination of the Capital (IC) an important link between support needs and development
report published by the UN World Commission on Environment and needs to fulfil the SDGs (Suciu and Nàsulea, 2019;Massaro et al.,
Development, known as the Brundtland Report (Brundtland, 1987). An 2018). Several studies argue that IC is the most powerful economic
accepted definition identifies its three main pillars: economic, social, production engine and the most important driver of smart, sustainable,
and environmental sustainability (Wasiluk, 2013, p. 103). inclusive, economic and social development (Matos et al., 2017; Suciu
The topic of sustainability also gained more attention due to the 2015 and Nasulea, 2019).
launch of the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’ The term IC, coined for the first time by Machlup in 1962, with the
2030 agenda. It consisted of global and universal indicators for international aim to highlight the importance of general knowledge as essential to
cooperation as well as for the collaboration of civil so-ciety, governments, growth and development, has become the focus of researchers and
multilateral institutions and the private sector (Nam, 2015). The Sustainable academics in recent years, especially with the arrival of the knowledge
development framework includes 17 SDGs that embrace a wide range of based society (see, Drucker, 1993; Sveiby, 1997; Edvinson and
environmental, social and economic issues, including climate change, Malone, 1997; Bontis, 1996, 1998, 2003). IC has been described as
energy, biodiversity, food supply and security, sustainable production and intellectual material that has been formalized, captured and leveraged
consumption, healthcare, educa-tion, gender, equality, peace and economic to produce a higher valued asset (Klein and Prusak, 1994). An inter-
growth (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016). The goal of sustainable development is esting conceptualisation sees IC as the combination of intangible re-
to find the ef-fective solutions for some complex challenges and issues sources and activities that allow an organisation to transform a bundle
such as energy, of material, financial and human resources into a system capable of
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Secundo), [email protected] (V. Ndou), [email protected] (P.D. Vecchio),
[email protected] (G. De Pascale).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119917
Received 13 March 2019; Received in revised form 18 July 2019; Accepted 15 January 2020
0040-1625/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
G. Secundo, et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 153 (2020) 119917
creating stakeholder value (European Commission, 2006). In particular, IC Accordingly, this paper reviews and critiques the IC and SDG lit-
can be thought of as three categories of intangible assets of a com-pany: erature, to provide an overview of the state of research on the topic
e.g., human capital, organisational capital (or structural capital), and and to outline a future research agenda.
relational capital (also social capital or customer capital) (Stewart, 1997; To perform such research this paper uses a structured literature
Bontis, 1998). IC sustains and drives value creation dynamics (Schiuma et review (SLR) methodology, as proposed by Massaro et al. (2016). It
al., 2007). According to Dumay (2016, p. 169) IC ‘values’ encompass not also extends the SLR approach through the use of keyword analysis
only monetary value, but also ‘value’ created in terms of the usefulness of (McCulloh et al., 2013; Ribiere and Walter, 2013) and the inclusion of
the goods and services that organisations produce (utility), the benefits more detailed content-driven analysis to further develop findings.
provided to society in general (social) (Nahapiet and Ghosal, 1998), and the It has been extensively argued that conducting an SLR “can help
impact on future generations (sustainability) (Dumay, 2016). The concept of experienced scholars develop new and interesting research paths by
value includes economic utility, social worth and environmental value accessing and analysing a considerable volume of scholarly work”
(Dumay et al., 2017). (Massaro et al., 2016). The use of SLR has been successfully adopted
Furthermore, with the widespread use of technological applications in different research fields (Massaro et al., 2015b;Guthrie et al., 2012;
and the advent of the digital era, IC has a significant impact on eco- Dumay and Cai, 2014; Centobelli and Ndou, 2019).
nomic growth and social development, based increasingly on knowl- The findings of a Structured Literature Review (SLR) show the ex-
edge and innovation. Managing and introducing IC practices has be- isting literature's focus primarily on three research areas: 1) IC com-
come a decisive factor for competitiveness, reputation, richness and ponents for Sustainable Development in the Private sector; 2) IC for
sustainability, which focus on citizens, quality of life and the con- Sustainable Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy, and
tribution to a more sustainable society (Matos, et al, 2019). Therefore, finally 3) IC for Sustainable Development in the Public Sector. These
an overlap between sustainability and IC (Wasiluk, 2013, p. 104) results highlight the partial comprehension of the phenomenon ob-
emerges as they “both highlight that organisations need to develop served and are a useful baseline for implications in terms of technology
new understandings of how to create and exploit their nonfinancial re- policies that could support the evolution and achieving SDGs at global
sources.” Accordingly, academics and practitioners are focusing on level. Finally, a future research agenda is framed for sketching out the
exploring the relationships between IC, sustainability and competi- IC role for SDG achievement, with particular reference to ICT and
tiveness of companies, cities, regions and countries (Massaro et al, other technologies’ potentialities. The results and implications of this
2017). study inform practitioners and academics about the main evolution of
Recently, the debate and research on IC has reached the ‘fourth IC and SDGs, providing some insights about future research needs.
stage’ of research (Guthrie et al., 2012) that extends the boundaries of The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: after the in-
IC to include a wider ecosystem (Secundo et al., 2016). Therefore, the troduction, in Section 2 the methodology is detailed. Section 3 presents
fourth stage of IC research shows particular attention to sustainability the SLR's findings in terms of descriptive statistics and content
issues, as it also deals with “paramount ecological, social, and demo- analysis. Discussions, conclusions and implications are detailed in the
graphic problems that our societies are facing” (Dameri and Ricciardi,
final sec-tions.
2015, p. 861). Such research developments are sketching an
intersection between sustainability and IC, as they both focus on un- 2. Methodology
derstanding and analysing the interrelations between IC and the pillars
of economic, social, and environmental sustainability (Massaro et al, To achieve the aims of this study a structured literature review
2017). (SLR) is performed. SLR is considered an appropriate approach able
Among IC's main components, different studies have suggested the to contribute in identifying research trends and future potentialities
leading role of information communication technologies (ICTs) for (Massaro et al., 2016; Petticrew and Roberts, 2006; Tranfield et al.,
sustainability in delivering multiple benefits to society, thus con-tributing 2003). More recently, SLRs has reached significant progress going be-
to achieving SDGs (Charles Steinfield, et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2018). It yond simply summarising and deducing prior researches, due to the
has been argued that the ICTs’ pervasiveness plays a relevant role in wide availability of academic papers (Massaro et al., 2016).
addressing societal and sustainability challenges in areas such as Previous studies suggest different approaches and steps to be fol-
health, energy, and transportation, fostering excellence in the science lowed to appropriately identifying relevant articles to review (Dumay
base (Research Infrastructures), and promoting leadership in traditional and Cai, 2014; Massaro et al. 2015a, 2015b; Christoffersen 2013;
and high-tech manufacturing sectors (robotics, photonics, micro- and Thorpe et al. 2005). To perform a systematic, transparent and
nanoelectronics) (European Commission, 2015). replicable study the SLR needs to follow some specific steps (Massaro
However, access to technology in isolation does not result in et al. 2016), such as the definition of research questions, research
achieving SDGs (Söderholm et al, 2019). What is being often over- protocol, papers and coding framework as well as the type of analysis
looked is the interrelation between technological infrastructure and to perform.
organisations or countries’ capacity to exploit and mobilize the tech- According to Massaro et al (2016), the first step in performing a SLR is
nology to create value and advantage by facilitating knowledge ex- to establish the research questions. Three main RQ need to be for-mulated:
change and spurring innovation. In achieving such outputs, IC man- How is the literature developing? What is the literature's focus on the issue?
agement is being considered a central resource (Martin et al., 2018; And what are the implications of research? Regarding this, the research
Mertins and Orth, 2012, Cavicchi and Vagnoni, 2017; de Leaniz and
questions in this study are formulated as follows:
del Bosque, 2013) as it concentrates on the dynamic interrelation of
human, structural and relational capital for maximising sustainable RQ1. How is the Sustainable development literature developing ac-
performance. cording to an IC perspective?
Despite the evident interrelation between IC and sustainability the RQ2. What is the literature's focus within Sustainable Development
comprehension of its impact on achieving SDG goals is still under re- and IC?
searched and analysed from fragmented perspectives. Accordingly, RQ3. What are the research implications in the fields of SDGs, IC
there is a need to comprehend the literature's state of the art regarding
and Technology policies?
sustainability and achieving SDGs through the strategic role of IC.
This raises a need to better understand the meaning of IC as the The first research question is intended to provide a specific state of
most promising strategy enabling achieving 17 SDGs to derive im- the art of literature on the issue as well as explaining the extent to which
plications in terms of technology policies. the literature is considering the argument.
2
The second research question is more linked to defining the per- 1 We queried the string of KWs in both Scopus and WoS. We found that
spective from which literature has been developed so far and which all items coming out with WoS were included in the Scopus dataset, which
main keywords and specialisation emerge from the literature con- was then much larger. So we used the Scopus dataset.
sidered. 2 Our focus was on SD and IC and related linkages, then the use of
The third research question is more inferential, meaning that it these two KWs linked to each other was substantial to define the
helps the researchers to discuss and provide insights. boundaries of our search. In querying databases, this linkage runs
In addition, the research protocol is necessary for determining with the command “AND.” However, to avoid false negatives, we
which source of information to use, which methods, means and tools also performed the selection with the command “OR.” Results led
to apply for exploring and summarising the studies (Petticrew and us to the same selection.
Roberts, 2008). 3 Our aim was to deliver an inventory of papers concerning a specific
A further step to follow is to determine the papers to include for a research area. That document list also needed to be relevant. To
comprehensive literature search. We focused on Scopus database for assess the relevance, we considered the impact in terms of
identifying the articles to be included. This choice is coherent with citations weighted by years lagged in time, as usual. We used this
previous studies argument which concurs that Scopus database pro- restriction to rule out items not influencing the development of the
vides extensive coverage of academic journals as it embraces more research areas over time.
than 20,000 peer-reviewed journals (Mishra et al., 2017) and it is more 4 In building the panel of relevant articles, we were interested in
abundant than Web-of-Science (WoS) database (Thelwall, 2018). In identifying a first grouping of items. To do so, we performed the
addition, the papers indexed in Web of Science (WoS) are almost in- cluster analysis excluding papers clustering alone. The cluster cri-
cluded in Scopus database as well (97%) (Waltman, 2016). Therefore, teria were the existence of a third common article in the references
using Scopus database is a suitable data warehouse for performing of two compared papers. However, to improve our results’ robust-
structured literature review. ness, we read the papers excluded by the clustering procedure.
The next step consisted in developing the coding framework based
Once again, results led us to the same selection.
on similar research frameworks. For the scope of this study we defined
the following categories for coding: All these reasons support the need to reduce the selection bias,
which actually occurs in different stages of our workflow to obtain the
• Timing of publication: Nr. of papers published over time.
dataset to progress towards analysis.
• Geographictries. distribution of papers: papers distribution among coun- This way of searching for papers is reproducible and comprehen-
• Journals: Distribution of papers among journals and citations re- sive. As first result, a total of 1520 papers were recovered. Data were
ceived. collected in January 2019 - February 2019.
• Author and Citations analysis: Number of citations, citations per
year, Citations and collaborations among authors. We considered only journal papers published up to 2018 (inclusive)
• Relevant Keywords and topics: The type and frequency of and we excluded conference papers, book chapters, research notes,
keywords used and the emergent topic areas. editorials, and commentaries (Keupp et al., 2012).
Finally, a critical analysis and discussion of the results obtained is Also, to obtain a more suitable set of papers, we defined some in-
necessary. In this study, a SLR and bibliometric analysis is performed clusion and exclusion criteria.
to decrease errors. Previous studies recommend combining these two Three researchers were employed in reading the papers’ abstracts
methods to enhance the value of the research outcomes (Feng et al., and titles to identify the pertinent papers for further analysis.
2017; Fahimnia et al., 2015). Specifically, selection of items was performed following the steps dis-
To select appropriate papers to include in the study, we defined played in Fig. 1:
search strings by querying a set of relevant keywords. The keywords
and combinations identified and used for the paper search were 1 1520 items were downloaded from Scopus database, after setting
“Intellectual Capital” AND “Sustainable Development” OR the keywords.
“Technolog*”, in the title, abstract, author keywords, author(s), number 2 535 items were excluded due to being conference paper/book/book
of citations, year, affiliations, source & document type. chapter/short survey.
In SLR, selection bias arises when considering the topic's scope. If 3 887 articles were excluded after reading titles and abstracts, due to
it is broad and hard to define, relevant articles risk being excluded. the fact that only 98 out of 985 matched at least one of the topics of
However, SLR literature presents methods to reduce such risk. These intellectual capital/sustainable development/technology.
methods lie in the protocol used to perform the SLR. Petticrew and 4 Searching the articles considering IC in a pair with Sustainable
Roberts (2006) argued that the standard protocol's aim is to reduce the Development or Technology. This led to the exclusion of an addi-
false negative and, at the same time, increase the false positive as tional 47 articles, so that we kept only 51 articles in the study for
much as possible. Starting from this, Reed and Baxter (2009) stated further analyses.
that: “Classically, we strive for high precision to recall a maximum of
hits (re-levant sources), a minimum of false positive (identified but The data analysis consisted first of all of some descriptive analysis
irrelevant sources), and very small number of false negatives (relevant such as distribution of articles among countries, aiming to underline
sources not identified) to maximize efficiency. In research summaries, how literature supports the development of a scientific discourse within
however, the paradigm is different. Because the goal is thoroughness specific national settings (Massaro and Dumay, 2015a). In addition, as
(completeness), the primary need is to reduce the number of false suggested by Dumay (2014), measures were also performed related to
negatives (relevant sources not identified), so the research summaries analysing the impact of the citation index (CI), the citations per year
must be willing so examine a larger number of false positives.” (CPY), as well as citations and collaborations among authors. For
In the case of this article, we followed the PRISMA protocol, which analysing the keywords, we performed occurrence analysis that per-
mitted identifying the most relevant and used ones.
precisely confirms what was highlighted by the aforementioned au-
Articles were coded manually by author, using other research team
thors. Therefore, we chose the KWs mainly covering the largest scope
members to solve discrepancies in coding. Manual codes were
of IC and SD. We deem our results robust for several reasons:
checked using text search queries to increase the results’ validity.
Following the coding, data were analysed by using VOSviewer, a tool
for constructing and visualising bibliometric networks and clusters (Van
Eck and Waltman, 2014).
3
the emerging trends and research gaps as well as for identifying future
directions. The main findings are presented and discussed in the next
section.
3. Research findings: insights and critique
This section aims to present the results obtained from the analysis
that answer the first two research questions of this study: RQ1. How is
the Sustainable development literature developing according to an IC
perspective? And RQ2. What is the literature's focus within Sustainable
Development and IC?
Accordingly, this section is organised into two main parts: de-
scriptive and content analysis.
3.1. Descriptive analysis
3.1.1. Articles’ evolution in time

Fig. 2 displays the number of published articles over the 2005-2018
timeframe. By reading Fig. 2, the trend in the number of published
articles appears to be growing over the considered 2005-2018 time-
frame. As shown by the figure, the first articles (5) date back to 2005,
and from that date to 2010, scholars only published three articles. By
contrast, from 2011 on, the interest regarding the topic of IC linked to
related technologies and sustainable development revived, so that in
2013 there was a first peak of developed articles (7). This number was
doubled in 2018. Hence, along the considered timeframe, the highest
peak of published articles was reached in 2018. This data may conceal
that scholars deem this topic relevant for deep exploration in future
studies.
The findings related to this issue demonstrate how the literature on
IC and SDG began to flourish in recent years. Very few contributions
are provided before 2010, and the correlation and co-citations between
authors is also very low. This again explains the studies’ fragmentation
related to such inter-relationship. The somewhat high number of arti-
cles in recent years is related to academics and practitioners’ greater
awareness on the issue.
3.1.2. Geography of the articles

To analyse the articles’ geography, we considered the distribution
of articles per country (Fig. 3), the number of citations per country and
Fig. 1. Article selection pyramid.
number of cited articles per country (Fig. 4). The count was made by
considering the involvement of a country (by university/research in-
Thus, data were processed by following different techniques (van stitution) in the articles’ authorship: if an article was developed by
Eck and Waltman, 2017): cooperation of different countries, each country received one point. So,
this geographical investigation just helps understand which countries
• Co-occurrence (Eck and Waltman, 2009) – the articles’ relatedness is have ever shown interest in studying the topic of IC linked to sustain-
assessed based on the number of articles in which they occur to-gether, able development.
using the author's keywords as unit of analysis. We set the software to
include papers in which keywords occur 3 times at least. Specifically, we found that:
○ Bibliographic coupling (Kessler, 1963) - the articles’ relevance is
based on the number of references they share (Boyack and • The top three countries are represented by Romania (9), Spain (9)
and USA (7). As the overall number of selected papers is low, 19
Klavans, 2010). Unit of analysis: Documents: the pertinence is out of 28 countries have only one article, and 5 out of 28 with two
evaluated considering those papers that mainly share the same articles.
references. If it is, they cluster. Each cluster contains the papers • The top three numbers of citations belong to UK, USA and
Switzerland, respectively. Once again the works published in 2005
that may mark a specific theme/topic. The software was set to
led the rank, driven in this case by geographic location. This data
consider papers with at least 1 citation refers to Table 1, which shows the references of the top three cited
papers and related countries involved.
The fractional counting is used for all the analysis performed with • From the number of cited papers per country, Romania disappears,
VOS viewer (Leydesdorff and Opthof, 2010). although it is on top of the ranking in Fig. 3. Other results just note
As argued by (Van Eck and Waltman, 2014) the clustering that the dominant positions are held by UK, USA and Spain.
technique is appropriate for performing bibliometric analysis by
These findings again explain the studies’ fragmentation among
VOSviewer de-velopers, as it refers to distances between nodes, and
countries. Up to now, no country is specialised in the topic.
therefore groups/ clusters are determined by minimising such
distances. Additionally, networking technique is proposed following the In addition, the journals where the articles are published belong
consolidated literature (Newman, 2004). mainly to the areas of Business, Management and Accounting and
Finally, a content analysis is performed with the purpose of grasping
4
Fig. 2. Trend of the published articles over the timeframe 2005-2018.
Economics, Econometrics and Finance (according to Scopus significantly lesser number of citations) being published in recent years. In
classifica-tion). The other articles are published in journals that belong this respect, it is recommended to see the next Table 3, in which these data
to dif-ferent areas such as engineering and social sciences, without a are standardized by the lag time since their publication.
specific specialisation. This could be evident since the argument of Additionally, Table 2 provides an overview of the developed arti-
cles’ trends and number of citations per year. Comparing researchers’
SDG is broad.
efforts to develop articles and the interest in their works confirms the
importance of 2005.
3.1.3. Journals
These remarks can be easily understood by reading Fig. 6. The
Where articles are published is an important indicator especially for
graph portrays the differences existing between the number of
prospective researchers and authors (Dumay and Cai, 2014). Our re-
developed ar-ticles and related number of the ones cited from 2005 to
search indicates that the total amount of published articles in journals
2018. Al-though the number of papers published in the period 2005 to
is 51, indicating that the topic has great unexplored potential.
2014 is not high, all of them received at least one citation, and in 2011
A different consideration arises from focus on the source of the
alone, 4 articles received 28 citations. Furthermore, in some years
most influential articles. As shown in Tables 1 and 2, four journals con-
(2006, 2007, 2012) no papers were published. Importantly, in 2013, a
sistently have the largest citations and CPY (Sustainable Development,
after one-year-break, all seven developed papers received attention by
R and D Management, Technovation, Journal of Intellectual Capital).
later studies. In contrast, from 2015 on, some articles were not
The influence may come from the specific article and not the relative
considered as influential and supporting later research. However, the
journal.
short lag time between the date of their publication and today may play
However, owing to the relatively small number of published papers,
a role in marking their influence.
it seems that the research will need to make a significant contribution With reference to the most cited authors and papers, Table 3 dis-
to both IC and SDG knowledge. cerns the rankings of the most cited articles and related CPY (which
stands for “Citation Per Year”) for the ten most cited authors. The CPY
3.1.4. Citations and most influential authors index presented here was proposed by Massaro and Dumay (2015).
Fig. 5 shows that, by virtue of citations received, the most inter- Dumay (2014) argues that articles published in recent years “have not
esting articles date from 2005. The absolute values trend reveals had sufficient time to garner citations” (Dumay, 2014, p.22). In our
scarce consideration for the articles developed in 2008, 2009 and analysis, the most influential authors are M. Redclift and J.C. Hayton,
2015. More influence emerges for other years, although far from the whose works date back to 2005. They also remain the most influential
citations re-ceived by articles published in 2005. for the CPY. Specifically, as cited 299 times, the research developed by
Specifically, three out of five articles bring more than 500 out of 595 Redclift seems being kind of bible for scholars. The third influential
citations received in 2005. These top three articles are ranked as pre- article in CPY rank work was written by Dženopoljac V., Janoševic S.
sented in Table 1: and Bontis N. in the recent 2016. The fourth was developed by Car-
These articles seem to represent a reference point for researchers.
ayannis, Von Zedtwitz in 2005. This data remarks the importance of this
However, as dating from 2005, they are affected by the time lag oc- year for the topic of IC linked to sustainable development or related
curring between their publication and that of articles (having received
5
Fig. 3. Geography of the articles by number of items per country.
technology. From the fifth position down, the Citation and CPY values section, to group together Keywords must occur at least 3 times
are significantly lower than those mentioned. (threshold). This means that each Keyword is likely tied to others from
These results suggest that prospective authors who want to publish different clusters, but it does not occur simultaneously, so that the
on these topics should “think carefully about how their research is threshold is fulfilled (Fig. 7).
transformational […]” (Dumay, 2014, p.20), and consider not only The most recurrent keywords are “Sustainable Development” (10)
popular methods and approaches, but confute these by proposing new and “Intellectual Capital” (30) and correspond to 2 out of 3 Keywords
ones. we queried on Scopus. As shown in Fig. 7, although they are placed in
different clusters, they have links: they occur together but lesser than 3
3.1.5. Topics and common keywords times. Specifically, “intellectual capital” plays a substantial role in
Table 4 sets out the Keywords occurrences in 51 selected articles. linking green cluster to others. It appears as a word having a wide
Keywords are used by authors, editors and publishers to signal im-portant meaning, with different interpretations as related to the sustainability
themes in articles. According to Silverman (2013, p. 275), keyword analysis principles. Interestingly, Keywords regarding sustainability in blues and
“is a method that allows analysing very large amounts of text without losing red clusters are not linked to “Knowledge economy”, “knowledge cities”
touch with focusing on small amounts of the material in considerable and “intangible assets” from the green cluster. Hence, either there is
depth.” In this paper, keywords are classified and analysed through a social no link between sustainability (in all its KWs) and these green cluster
network analysis. While Booker et al. (2008, p.240.), argue that Keywords, or “intellectual capital” is considered as a broad concept
“practitioners search for articles based on topics or keywords as they are conveying both sustainability and green cluster Keywords meaning.
needed.” Similar to the study performed by Ribiere and Walter (2013),
keywords were extracted from the arti-cles and a dictionary of terms was 3.2. Clustering and content analysis
created by aggregating similar key-words. In fact, keywords are grouped by
3.2.1. Clustering analysis
their co-occurrence in the same work. Results show 3 clusters. As
The clustering analysis has been conducted through the
mentioned in the methodology
6
Fig. 4. Geography of the articles by number of citations/cited items per country.
Bibliographic coupling (Kessler, 1963) considering the 51 papers in-cluded

in the data sample. As explained in the methodological section for the
• Research area 2: IC for Sustainable Regional Development in the
Knowledge Economy
bibliographic coupling, we used documents and sources as units of
analysis, and the relatedness is evaluated by considering articles that
• Research area 3: IC for Sustainable Development in Public Sector
mainly share the same references (Boyack and Klavans, 2010). The result Although most of the papers belonging to a specific bibliographic
of this analysis produced 3 clusters and 26 papers (as only papers with 1 cluster respond to the same research area, there is not a perfect
citation at least are considered). We considered this clustering to avoid matching. There are some exceptions. Therefore, for better re-
fragmentation of the results as well as the unpacking of the same topic to presentation of the research areas, the 26 papers are re-categorized
different areas. The clusters considered bring together those articles that into the three research areas according to their content and focus, and
may mark a specific topic/approach (Table 5,Fig. 8). not only by considering the bibliographic coupling (Table 6).
Fig. 8 shows the clusters considering the strength of the closeness Research area 1: IC components for Sustainable Development in
regarding the number of common bibliographies appearing in the ar- Private Sector
ticle. Therefore, the VOSviewer software cluster technique works after The first topic area identified provides a general overview about the
role of the single IC components for private firms in achieving
running 10 interactions.
Sustainable Development. Fourteen papers fall under this topic area
3.2.2. Content analysis category. The papers’ content analysis aims to shed light on how aca-
demics and practitioners are conceiving IC as a source of sustainable
For a more complete understanding of the main emerging research competitive advantage and how its different components (human ca-
areas, a deep content analysis of the 26 papers is performed. Three pital, social capital and structural capital) impact sustainability and
researchers proceeded independently with a detailed content analysis performance.
by reading all papers with the aim to classify them according to the Two main sub research areas emerge: 1) The role of human, structural
research area. This process allowed identification of three research and relational capital in generating value for firms, and, 2) The role of IC
disclosure for economic, social and environmental sustainability.
areas that synthetize the body of knowledge, and consist of:
Such distinction into two sub-research areas is necessary given the
• Research area 1: IC components for achieving Sustainable broader coverage of IC areas and to better understand how specific IC ele-
Development in Private Sector ments (human, social and structural) relate and contribute to SDG. The
7
G. Secundo, et al.
second research area emerging is related to the greater awareness of
UKUSA, SwitzerlandUSA
Country (-ies) prac-titioners and researchers to deal with IC disclosure as a relevant
practice for firms.
As for the first sub-research area, the content analysis reveals that
the articles focus principally on providing empirical evidence on how IC
could impact the attainment of sustainable advantage either by gen-
erating new value through the use of human, social and structural ca-
Sustainable DevelopmentRandDManagementTechnovation
pital (Chahal and Bakshi, 2016), or by assisting organisations to im-

prove their innovative capabilities (Nosova et al., 2017). The
contribution related to this category are mainly focused on the role of
IC in improving performance and achieving sustainable competitive
advantages at the firm's level by providing practical experiences of
Source
firms operating in high-technology sector, banking sector or bio-

economy sector.
Cited by
Some of the main contributions include: Hayton's (2005) study that

discusses the role of IC for new high-tech ventures and argues that IC
299
127
110
highly influence the innovative capability of firms as well as corporate

entrepreneurship. Consideration of 237 new high tech ventures in the
Competing in the new economy: The effect of intellectual capital on corporate entrepreneurship in high-technology new ventures
US highlights the relationship between IC components and their en-

Architecting gloCal (global-local), real-virtual incubator networks (G-RVINs) as catalysts and accelerators of entrepreneurship intransitioninganddevelopingeconomies:Lessonslearnedandbestpracticesfromcurrentdevelopmentandbusinessincubationpractices
trepreneurial behaviour as a source of sustainable competitive ad-

vantage. Reputational and human capital, expressed as the extent of
educational diversity and advanced scientific education, influence
highly firms’ innovation capacity and sustainability (Hayton, 2005). In an
SDG perspective, this paper contributes to understanding how IC
elements could contribute to achieving Goal 9: Build resilient infra-
structure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster
innovation (see Table 7)
The study of Pekka-Economou and Hadjidema (2011) analyses the
role of IC elements (in particular human capital) in creating knowledge
companies that are able to establish sustainable competitive
advantage. The banking sector is analysed by Chalal and Bakshi
(2016) for ex-amining the value generation through the use of human,
structural and relational capital. Considering the data collected from
144 branches of public and private commercial banks in emerging
countries (India) the study provides valuable insights into how to
Sustainable development (1987-2005): An oxymoron comes of age
improve banks’ structural capital by boosting employees’ innovation

aptitude and positive culture and strengthening information technology.
Other studies that focus on examining the IC role for value creation
in the Information Technology (IT) sector are provided by Dzenpoljac et
al. (2016) and Nosova et al. (2017). Dzenpoljac et al. (2016) analyse
the extent to which IC with its com-ponents influences the performance
of selected ICTs companies in a transitional country (Serbia). The
study entails an important insight related to the fact that in contexts
with low levels of research and de-velopment expenditures,
innovativeness and sources of competitive advantage, the role of IC
does not produce the required effects. Fur-thermore, the study of
Nosova et al. (2017) scrutinizes the role of nano-intellectual capital in
creation of high technologies able to ensure sus-tainable development
of the economy. Meanwhile, the study of López-Gamero et al. (2011)
back to 2005.
introduces the term ‘Sustainable intellectual capital’ as a relevant

starting point to handle environmental issues in the gen-eral
management of firms. Through the analysis of a case study, the paper
Title
indicates that sustainable IC supports the accumulation and uti-lisation

of knowledge, introduction of innovations and technology im-
Table 1Highlights of top three cited papers dating
provements, as well as bolstering the relationship between firms and

E.G., Von Zedtwitz M. (2005)
environment. Another recent study that focuses on the IC role for sus-
tainability on the bio economy sectors is by Vătămănescu et al. (2018).
It examines the effects of the online IC conveyed by the digital
economy on the consumption patterns through the lens of bio
economy. In an SDG perspective this paper contributes to Goal 12:
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (see Table 7)
(2005)
(2005)
and provides practical insights on how IC could contribute to the

consumption pat-terns.
As for the second sub-research area, we found studies that focused on
Hayton J.C.
Carayannis
Redclift M.
Author (-s)
the emergence of human capital as a pillar of corporate social re-

sponsibility (Fraguela Formoso, 2013) and the need of reporting
8
Table 2
Citations trend. Timeframe 2005 - 2018.
Category Citations received by the papers published each year

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Citations 595 - - 13 1 32 28 - 41
Number of papers 5 0 0 1 1 1 4 0 7
Category Citations received by the papers published each year Total
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Citations 31 11 29 21 15 817
Number of papers 3 4 5 6 14 51
standards for shedding new light on the knowledge assets’ role in the practices published in 1,651 blog posts in one of the leading sustain-
current dynamics of competitiveness (Liao, et al., 2013), and to ability research sources: CSRwire.com.
achieving an environmental, economic and social equilibrium (Silveira, Other contributions related to this area are provided by de Leaniz and
2013). Specifically, in the paper ofFraguela Formoso (2013), IC is Del Bosque (2013). They focus on understanding the role played by
explored mainly under the perspective of human capital by highlighting corporate sustainability in reputation as one of the key components of
the emergence of emotional capital that can allow a com-pany to relational capital. They argue that when firms reveal information re-garding
compete by leveraging on the full engagement of employees through social sustainability or economic performance, they influence their
their emotions and motivations. The articulated roadmap proposed by competitive advantage. While the study of Oliviera et al. (2010) analyses the
Fraguela Formoso (2013) is conceived as a lens for ad-dressing the disclosure practices among Portuguese firms through sus-tainability reports
need for considering renewable energy sources, effective management as a strategic tool to manage relationships and build a positive image with
of waste and pollution, and more responsible environ-mental stakeholders, thus contributing to enhancing their corporate reputation. In
sustainability. In an SDG perspective, this paper contributes to Goal 8: an SDG perspective, this paper contributes to understanding how IC
Decent work and economic growth (see Table 7), and in par-ticular elements could contribute to achieving Goal 12: Ensure sustainable
provides practical insights on creating conditions that allow people to consumption and production patterns (see Table 7).
produce quality performances. The paper of Liao et al. (2013) focuses on the impact of mandatory
Another relevant contribution in this area is provided by the con-ceptual adoption of international financial reporting standards on IC disclosure
bridge between the IC and corporate sustainability (CS) litera-ture to through the empirical evidence of a sample of high tech companies in
investigate how firms mobilize their IC to implement sustainable the UK. In the paper, IC is categorized into a larger spectrum of focal
development in their business practices (Wasiluk, 2013). This discus-sion is areas, such as process, customer, human, research and development.
deepened by the contribution of Massaro et al. (2018) that opens the door As in the majority of the studies in research area 1, all three IC di-mensions -
to a potentially productive way of understanding IC as linked to the human capital, structural and social capital - are considered key elements that
development of economic, social, and environmental value. They influence achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The content analysis of
investigate the relationship between IC and sustainability using prac- these articles indicates the necessity to understand and recognize the role and
titioners’ perspectives and by developing an analysis of comments and value of single IC elements and the need to effectively
Fig. 5. Number of citations received by articles over the timeframe 2005-2018.
9
G. Secundo, et al.
manage these components for sustainable value and advantage. The

Ranking CPY articles suggest that sustainable growth is a matter of knowledge
sharing support, building innovative capability, training, collaboration
and technology de-velopment and transfer.
10
12
6
3
7
5
9
Research area 2: IC for Sustainable Regional Development in the
3621.079.
867. Knowledge Economy

073.
332.
CPY
563.
133.
141.
4.8
The papers included in this second cluster are focused on the
9
comprehension of IC as driver for the sustainable development at level of
Cited by
countries (Navarro et al., 2014), regions (Januškaitè and Užienè, 2018) and
299127
110
43
32
27
25
24
16
14
cities (López-Ruiz et al., 2014; Navarro et al., 2015; Nevado-Peña et al.,
2015). Four papers included in this thematic cluster were written by the
EnvironmentExpertSystems with Applications
Journal of Cases on Information

same authors, López-Ruiz, Navarro and Nevado-Peña, in the period 2014-
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Journal of Intellectual Capital
2015. At country level, the National IC is identified as an alternative lens on

Business Strategy and the
Sustainable DevelopmentRandDManagement
the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for measuring the wellbeing and wealth
Learning Organization
of a nation, by considering intangible assets, such as human development,

TechnologyIntangibleCapital
national image, employment conditions, environment, innovation. Moving

Technovation
from this assumption, Navarro et al. (2014) propose a scorecard for

Source title
measuring national in-tangible assets composed by six main dimensions of

capital, such as human, process, relational or trade, marketing or image,
R&D and in-novation, social and environmental. In an SDG perspective, this
paper contributes to achieving Goal 4: Quality education (see Table 7).
2005
2005
2014
2013
2010
2016
2011
2005
20052005
Year
At regional level, scholars confirm that IC is relevant for the full

achievement of all the dimensions of a sustainable regional competi-
Sustainable development (1987-2005): An oxymoron comes of ageCompetingintheneweconomy:Theeffectofintellectualcapitalon corporate entrepreneurship in high-
tiveness, as found by Januškaitè and Užienè (2018) that explore the

technology new venturesArchitectinggloCal(global-local), real-virtual incubator networks (G-RVINs) as catalysts and acceleratorsofentrepreneurshipintransitioninganddevelopingeconomies:Lessonslearnedandbestpracticesfrom
intersection between IC and sustainable regional competitiveness

Intellectual capital and relational capital: The role of sustainability in developing corporate reputation
through a structured literature review and analysis of indexes (World

Economic Forum, the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index, and
the Global Green Economy Index). This paper contributes to Goal 17:
Partnerships for goals highlighting the need to strengthen cooperation
and enhance all stakeholders’ engagement for a sustainable
current development and business incubation practicesForperformancethroughlearning,knowledgemanagement is the critical practice
Sustainable development and intangibles: Building sustainable intellectual capital
competitive advantage (see Table 7).

Beyond knowledge management: Introducing learning management systems
The contextualisation at city level is predominant in this cluster,

Intellectual capital and financial performance in the Serbian ICT industry
mainly regarding its knowledge-intensive characterisation (López-Ruiz

Knowledge-city index construction: An intellectual capital perspective
et al., 2014). Aimed to support achieving sustainability, better conditions

of life and high-quality services, knowledge cities are pre-sented as a
favourable locus for enriching the variety of cultural life, increasing
people's skills and knowledge, as well as for supporting human
intellectual development (López-Ruiz et al., 2014; Yigitcanlar, 2008).
Intellectual capital reporting in sustainability reports
The authors focus on IC as an umbrella under which all the dimensions

of sustainability and wellbeing are presented in terms of human
development, economic structure, trade, image and innovation. They
present a complex methodological framework to measure the
knowledge cities’ growth capacity as conditioned by their knowledge
assets and IC. Aiming to provide a measurement of the monetary value
associated with the knowledge-driven growth process, the Navarro et
Table 3Topten author and article per Citation and Citation per Year (CPY).
al. (2015) study focuses the attention on IC for measuring effects and
dynamics of development. They chose a sample of 158 European cities
with particular attention on labour market and service variables. The
paper demonstrates that being well positioned in terms of sustainable
wealth also presents high level of services and labour market dynamics.
Such attainments are related to Goal 11: sustainable cities and
Title
communities. The paper of Nevado-Peña et al. (2015n) posits a IC

based index for assessing the sustainability of European cities. The
Cortés E., Molina-Azorín J.F.López-RuizV.-R.,Alfaro-Navarro J.-L., Nevado-PeñaD.
López-Gamero M.D., Zaragoza-Sáez P., Claver-
authors analysed a set of social and environmental efficiency indicators

to demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between knowledge
Dženopoljac V., Janoševic S., Bontis N.
and growth rankings. Accordingly, the authors note that in the different
Oliveira L., Rodrigues L.L., Craig R.
growth patterns analysed, environmental sustainability, with specific

Carayannis E.G., Von Zedtwitz M.
de Leaniz P.M.G., del Bosque I.R.

Gorelick C., Tantawy-Monsou B.
recycling and waste management policies, is crucial for most of the

cities analysed and is promising for the sustainable growth of all the
others.
All the articles of this research area highlight that IC plays an important role
Grace A., Butler T.
in achieving sustainable growth mainly focusing on human capital. Specifically,

Redclift M.HaytonJ.C.
all the papers recall the need for quality education to improve people's lives, to
Authors
create a more responsible and widespread culture of en-vironmental

sustainability, to achieve a sustainable regional competitiveness,
10
Fig. 6. Number of articles compared to the cited articles over the timeframe 2005-2018.
Table 4 third mission performance in terms of goals (continuing education,

Groups of Keywords occurrence. technology transfer and innovation, and social engagement), impact
level (department, university and community), actions (talent attrac-
Keywords Occurrences tion, continuing education for entrepreneurship, R&D network devel-
Cluster 1 (5 items - red) Economic Growth 4 opment, Intellectual Property & Spin-offs, community engagement and
Human Capital 5 internationalisation) and IC determinants for each action. This paper
Innovation 5
contributes to Goal 4: Quality education (see Table 7).
Knowledge Management 3
Sustainable Development 10 Furthermore, the connection of universities' goals with the bio
Cluster 2 (4 items - blue) Bio-economy 4 economy is also analysed under an IC perspective by Tiron-Tudor et
Relational Capital 3 al. (2018). It highlights the mutual influence of IC disclosures in its
Social Capital 3
ability to foster the development of the bio-economic environ-ment.
Sustainability 5
Cluster 3 (4 items - green) Intangible assets 4
Until now, many states have developed strategies and policies related
Intellectual Capital 30 to different biotechnology and bio-based industries and pro-ducts, but
Knowledge cities 3 increasingly countries are developing strategies that collect all these
Knowledge economy 3 separate topics under the conceptual umbrella of the bio-economy.
Thus, the authors cover a significant gap by approaching the
universities' IC disclosure as a strategic means to achieve sustainable
at level of environment, society, government, infrastructure, finance and
development. These papers were published in 2018 when the topic of
technology, to create connectivity between cities. Moreover, IC is assumed
sustainable development reached its awareness as linked to the IC
as a feature supporting industrial ecology, as complex combination of en-
management coherently with the fourth stage of IC research.
vironmental efficiency with efficient and sustainable social behaviours.
In an SDG perspective, this paper contributes to Goal 4: Quality
Research area 3: IC for Sustainable Development in Public Sector
Education (see Table 7), by discussing universities’ role in transferring
Different trends arise in the adoption of IC as a strategic tool in higher
knowledge.
education institutions as Public Universities adopted integrated and Another explored public sector context is Health care in Italy, where
sustainability reporting as a voluntary practice. The Brusca et al.
scholars recently urged research able to unlock the link be-tween
(2018) study critically analyses what, why, who and how the new
sustainable development strategy and IC. Specifically, the paper of
reporting models were implemented to accomplish sustain-ability in
Cavicchi and Vagnoni (2017) aims at investigating strategic planning
Spanish Universities. Their findings can serve as a learning process for
for sustainability within healthcare organisation, and the role that IC
institutions interested in implementing integrated reporting.
plays in Sustainable Development. Results show that the majority of
Furthermore, Secundo et al. (2017) recall in the European policy fra-
respondents generally adopt sustainable planning in which informal
mework of Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3), the need to develop
and/or occasional structures or collegial bodies deal with sustainability.
a new conceptual framework based on IC approaches to measure third
The topic is furtherly deepened by Cavicchi (2017) to investigate the
mission activities of universities actively accomplishing a sustainable
role of IC in promoting the Region Emilia-Romagna Health Service's
and regional development. The framework proposes an overall ap-
sustainable development program. The author found that, although at
proach for performance measurement in the Universities to manage
11
Fig. 7. Keywords’ Clusters.
Table 5
Bibliographic coupling clusters.
Authors Citations Title

Cluster 1 (11 items - Arenas T., Lavanderos L. (2008) 13 Intellectual Capital: object or process?
red) Chahal H., Bakshi P. (2016) 20 Measurement of Intellectual Capital in the Indian Banking Sector
Chen I.-S., Chen J.-K. (2013) 7 Present and future: A trend forecasting and ranking of university types for
de Leaniz P.M.G., del Bosque I.R. (2013) 12 innovative development from an intellectual capital perspective
Dženopoljac V., Janoševic S., Bontis N. (2016) 27 Intellectual capital and relational capital: The role of sustainability in
Hayton J.C. (2005) 127 developing corporate reputation
López-Gamero M.D., Zaragoza-Sáez P., Claver-Cortés E., 25 Intellectual capital and financial performance in the Serbian ICT industry
Molina-Azorín J.F. (2011) 2 Competing in the new economy: The effect of intellectual capital on corporate
Nosova S.S., Odintsov A.A., Novichkov V.I., Bondarev 32 entrepreneurship in high-technology new ventures
S.A., Makarenko A.V. (2017) 3 Sustainable development and intangibles: Building sustainable intellectual
Oliveira L., Rodrigues L.L., Craig R. (2010) 1 capital
Pekka-Economou V., Hadjidema S. (2011) Assessing the role of nano-intellectual capital as a factor
Vătămănescu E.-M., Alexandru V.-A., Cristea G., Radu L., Intellectual capital reporting in sustainability reports
Chirica O. (2018) Innovative organizational forms that add value to both organizations and
community: The case of knowledge management
A demand-side perspective of bioeconomy: The influence of online intellectual
capital on consumption
Cluster 2 (8 items - Fraguela Formoso J.Á., Carral Couce L., Iglesias 1 The path to excellence: A management strategy based on people [El camino
green) Rodríguez G., Sánchez Carricoba M. (2013) 1 hacia la excelencia: Estrategia empresarial basada en las personas]
Januškaite V., Užiene L. (2018) 5 Intellectual capital as a factor of sustainable regional competitiveness
Liao P.C., Chan A.L.-C., Seng J.-L. (2013) 24 Intellectual capital disclosure and accounting standards
López-Ruiz V.-R., Alfaro-Navarro J.-L., Nevado-Peña 4 Knowledge-city index construction: An intellectual capital perspective
D. (2014) 1 Economic growth and intangible capitals: Europe versus Asia
Navarro J.-L.A., Ruiz V.-R.L., Peña D.N. (2014) 10 An exploratory study of sustainable wealth for European knowledge cities
Navarro J.-L.A., Ruiz V.-R.L., Peña D.N. (2015) 1 The effects of environmental and social dimensions of sustainability in response
Nevado-Peña D., López-Ruiz V.-R., Alfaro-Navarro J.- to the economic crisis of European cities
L. (2015) Strategic management of innovation towards sustainable development of
Silveira M.A. (2013) Brazilian electronics industry
Cluster 3 (7 items – light Brusca I., Labrador M., Larran M. (2018) 2 The challenge of sustainability and integrated reporting at universities: A case
blue) Cavicchi C., Vagnoni E. (2017a) 6 study
Cavicchi C. (2017b) 4 Does intellectual capital promote the shift of healthcare organizations towards
Massaro M., Dumay J., Garlatti A., Dal Mas F. (2018) 2 sustainable development? Evidence from Italy
Secundo G., Elena Perez S., Martinaitis Ž., Leitner 9 Healthcare sustainability and the role of intellectual capital: Evidence from an
K.H. (2017) 1 Italian Regional Health Service
Tiron-Tudor A., Nistor C.S., Ştefănescu C.A. (2018) 10 Practitioners’ views on intellectual capital and sustainability: From a
Wasiluk K.L. performance-based to a worth-based perspective
An Intellectual Capital framework to measure universities' third mission
activities
The role of universities in consolidating intellectual capital and generating new
knowledge for a sustainable bio-economy
Beyond eco-efficiency: Understanding CS through the IC practice lens
12
Fig. 8. Clusters grouping items with intersected literature.
strategic level, awareness about the importance of sustainability pro- 4.1. Research area specialisation: topics, timing and authors
jects was systematic, the sustainable development culture did not ex-
pand at the operative level because of healthcare professionals’ lack In terms of authors’ contribution and focus on the identified areas, many
of involvement in a permanent dialogue for sustainability. In an SDG authors have contributed to the debate. Our analysis produced 51 papers
perspective, this paper contributes to Goal 3: Ensure healthy Lives focusing on the intersection of Sustainable development and IC. Exploration
(see Table 7), and in particular provides practical insights on how of the phenomena covers a meaningful timeframe (from 2003, 16 years). In
technol-ogies could enable sustainability in the healthcare sector. such a considerable period, however, productivity has been fragmented, with
The articles belonging to Research area 3 suggest that IC is strategic in some positive picks in 2005, 2013, becoming consistent in 2018. However,
developing more sustainable higher education at University level, through the majority of contributions are stan-dalone, dispersed among different
the definition of indicators for third mission performance measurement or journals. This trend is also confirmed by considering the citation results. In
through the development of human and social capital to increase sustain- fact, the resulting CPY is low (max 21,36). This aspect could be also
ability in healthcare organisations. These thematic perspectives revived the explained through the limited number of international co-operations among
interest of scholars and researchers with empirical contributions just authors, a recognized means to increase the number of citation impacts
starting in 2017 and 2018 when the importance of the sustainability and (Nomaler, et al., 2013). All this does not allow identifying elements of a
sustainable development focus has gained prominence. superstar effect argued by Serenko et al. (2011), in which a small number of
authors produced the majority of works. Consistent with the paper of
Massaro et al. (2016), the analysis suggests some useful implications
4. Discussions and implications
regarding low barriers to entry, the authors’ related low specialisation on the
topics, a still fragmented debate and a consequential need for work
This section aims to answer RQ.3 “What are the research implica-
systematisation.
tions in the field of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), IC and
Technology policies?” by discussing and criticising the main findings.
The answer to this question moves toward implications organized into 4.2. Research area specialisation: Journals
the following sub-sections.
Analysis of the publications’ venues has provided an interesting
overview of journals that are starting to be more focused on the topic
as well as on their influence in terms of citations within a specialized
Table 6
Mapping of papers according to the research areas.
Research areas Authors
Research area 1: IC components for Sustainable Development in Private sector

Chahal and Bakshi 2016; Nosova et al, 2017; Hayton 2005; Dzenpoljac et al 2016; Pekka-Economou and Hadjidema, 2011; Lopez Gamero et al, 2011;
Vatamanescu et al, 2018; Liao et al, 2013; Silveira, 2013; Fraguela Formoso 2013; Wasiluk, 2013; Massaro et al, 2018; Leaniz and Del Bosque 2013;
Oliveira et al, 2010.
Research area 2: IC for Sustainable Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy
Navarro et al., 2014; Januškaitè and Užienè, 2018; López-Ruiz et al., 2014; Navarro et al., 2015; Nevado-Peña et al., 2015.
Research area 3: IC for Sustainable Development in Public Sector
Secundo et al, 2017; Cavicchi, 2017; Cavicchi and Vagnoni, 2017; Tiron Tudor et al, 2018; Brusca et al, 2018; Chen and Chen, 2013
13
Table 7
The link between the Sustainable Development Goals, IC and Technology policies.
Paper Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) IC and Technology policy

Cluster 1
Arenas T., Lavanderos L. (2008). Intellectual Capital: object GOAL 9: BUILD RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE, No reference to technology policy.
or process? promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation ‘It is thus the network activity and the supporting structure
and foster innovation which constitutes IC, and the definition of knowledge in IC
happens to locate it in the exchange mode and in the type
of configuration in which it makes sense to be exchanged’.
Pg. 8
Chahal H., Bakshi P. (2016). Measurement of Intellectual GOAL 12: ENSURE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION No reference to technology policy- Technology is related to
Capital in the Indian Banking Sector AND PRODUCTION PATTERNS the structural capital that is a crucial component of IC.
‘…..managers can have better understanding of how IC
develops and drives performance. … and how they can use
intellectual capital as a tool to evaluate organizational
performance, which can also enable them to know how
value can be created with the help of trained, educated, and
creative employees”
Chen I.-S., Chen J.-K. (2013). Present and future: A trend GOAL 4: ENSURE INCLUSIVE AND No reference to technology policy . The value of technology for
forecasting and ranking of university types for innovative EQUITABLE QUALITY EDUCATION and IC is in the paper related to mechanisms “…… to
acquire and control IC to strengthen innovative ability and
development from an intellectual capital perspective. promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
to acquire competitive advantages have become critical
issues for countries worldwide. Since knowledge,
innovation, and IC are highly involved in a university's
nature, universities have become critical mechanisms for
countries to build up sustainable competitive advantages”
(pg. 350)
de Leaniz P.M.G., del Bosque I.R. (2013). Intellectual GOAL 12: ENSURE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION No reference to technology policy.
capital and relational capital: The role of sustainability “This research allows managers to identify the activities in
AND PRODUCTION PATTERNS
which companies can devote resources to in order to
in developing corporate reputation.
increase firm's reputation. By knowing these specific
economic, social and environmental activities, companies
can understand, analyse and make decisions in a better
way about its sector and about the stakeholders that
assess these initiatives”. Pg. 2.
Dženopoljac V., Janoševic S., Bontis N. (2016). Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote No reference to technology policy.
Intellectual capital and financial performance in the inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and IC as an important potential source of competitive
advantage. …….creating value with IC highlights that,
Serbian ICT industry. foster innovation
unlike tangible resources in a firm whose value erodes with
increased use, the value of IC increases with increased use...
IC is the main resource for creating extra value in the
information age” (pg 19)
Hayton J.C. (2005). Competing in the new economy: Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote No reference to technology policy.
The effect of intellectual capital on corporate inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and “…… study highlights the complex relationship between
aspects of IC and entrepreneurial activities. New ventures
entrepreneurship in high-technology new ventures foster innovation seeking to sustain innovation and venturing should attend to
the acquisition of the various types of IC” (pg 150).
López-Gamero M.D., Zaragoza-Sáez P., Claver-Cortés E., Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote Technology policy – related to the structural capital of IC
and mainly to the environmental issues
Molina-Azorín J.F. (2011). Sustainable development inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and
“for structural IC, all the firms continuously introduce
and intangibles: Building sustainable intellectual capital foster innovation innovations and improvements in their environmental
technology portfolio, which is composed of preventive
practices, the creation of an environmental department,
the appointment of a management representative and the
existence of an environmental manager”. pg. 34
Nosova S.S., Odintsov A.A., Novichkov V.I., Bondarev Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption Technology policy is recalled in the adoption of national
programs of clustering for the economic development. As
S.A., Makarenko A.V. (2017). Assessing the role of and production patterns for the IC, it is considered as, “…as a forerunner of the
nano-intellectual capital as a factor formation of the so-called nano-intellectual capital
realized in nano-technologies that substantially change
the appearance of innovation activity. It is proved that the
creation of high technologies can ensure sustainable
development of the economy” (pg 1) No reference to
Oliveira L., Rodrigues L.L., Craig R. (2010) Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption technology policy.
Intellectual capital reporting in sustainability reports “firms that adopt higher levels of adherence to the GRI
and production patterns reporting framework, and listed firms, provide a substantial
amount of IC information in sustainability reports. There
seems strong merit in regulatory institutions working
together to develop an integrated report on IC and
corporate responsibility matters. ….Sustainability reports
appear to be a synergistic and opportune medium for IC
disclosures”. (pg 590).
No reference to technology policy. IC in the paper is
Pekka-Economou V., Hadjidema S. (2011). Innovative Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable
referred to
organizational forms that add value to both quality education and promote lifelong “…. managers need to actively manage their firm's human
organizations and community: The case of learning opportunities for all capital through a variety of human resource practices in
knowledge management
(continued on next page)
14
Table 7 (continued)
order to stimulate its capacity in managing knowledge

acquisition, sharing and application. This kind of initiatives
could also stimulate creative and innovative thoughts that
may eventually lead to better performance and also
establish and fully exploit a source of sustainable
competitive advantage in the new competitive markets” Pg.
93.
Vătămănescu E.-M., Alexandru V.-A., Cristea G., Radu L., Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and Technology policy is in the paper referred to “digitalization
Chirica O. (2018). A demand-side perspective of production patterns – promoted and supported via the Digital Agenda for
bioeconomy: The influence of online intellectual capital Europe – contributes both directly and indirectly to the
on consumption debate on hot societal and economic issues and, implicitly,
to the development of the inherent conditions for the
formation of online communities based on common
interests” (pg. 545- 546)
CLUSTER 2
Fraguela Formoso, J. Á., Carral Couce, L., Iglesias Rodríguez, GOAL 8: DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC Technology policy is in the paper referred to actions
G., & Sanchez Carricoba, M. (2013). The path to GROWTH undertaken by companies that “…have to play their part in
excellence: A management strategy based on people. Sustainable economic growth will require societies facing the challenges posed in the Global Compact.
to create the conditions that allow people to have Creating policies in terms of research, development,
quality jobs. innovation, and ongoing training increases the intellectual
capital of the company and the emotional capital of the
worker…” (pg. 13).
Januškaitė, V., & Užienė, L. (2018). Intellectual Capital as a GOAL 17: PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS Technology policy is in the paper focused on regional
Factor of Sustainable Regional Competitiveness.. Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable competitiveness and the role that “…intellectual capital in
development regional competitiveness and is even more important
concerning
sustainable regional competitiveness. It raises an awareness
of society about sustainability, defines the legal and
institutional environment of a region, expresses the
relations between various stakeholders, and together
creates the foundation for a sustainable competitive
advantage…” (pg.15)
Liao, P. C., Ling-Ching Chan, A., & Seng, J. L. (2013). GOAL 8: DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC No reference to technology policy. The paper focuses on the
Intellectual capital disclosure and accounting standards. GROWTH disclosures of intellectual capital that “..are closely
Industrial management & data systems, 113(8), 1189- Sustainable economic growth will require societies associated with the international financial reporting
1205. to create the conditions that allow people to have standards adoption… to realize the impact of the IFRS
quality jobs. adoption on intellectual capital elements so that long‐term
strategic knowledge assets management may be
emphasized for sustainable competitive edge…” (pg. 1189)
López-Ruiz, V. R., Alfaro-Navarro, J. L., & Nevado-Peña, GOAL 11: SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND Technology policy is in the paper referred to the
D. (2014). Knowledge-city index construction: An COMMUNITIES development of knowledge cities as
intellectual capital perspective. There needs to be a future in which cities provide “…the most capable of producing sustainable economic
opportunities for all, with access to basic services, growth. Cities provide the most natural environment in
energy, housing, transportation and more. which to look for evidence of the knowledge spillovers so
emphasized by the endogenous growth theory. The
intellectual capital approach considers the ability to
transform knowledge and intangible resources into
sustainable long-term wealth. The approach does not only
contemplate sustainability and social wellbeing, but also
intangible factors such as human development, economic
structure, trade, image and innovation…” (pg. 5560)
Navarro, J. L. A., Ruiz, V. R. L., & Peña, D. N. (2014). GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION No reference to technology policy. IC is in the paper
Economic growth and intangible capitals: Europe versus Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to recalled to provide solution at the “…GDP limitations that
Asia. improving people's lives and sustainable have prompted the consideration of other measures such as
development. the intellectual capital of nations…” (pg. 263) . “…
education is the first of the political safeguards of long-term
growth…. Thus, economic growth is divergent, attracting
human capital to better position in structural intangible
countries…” (pg 272)
Navarro, J. L. A., Ruiz, V. R. L., & Peña, D. N. (2015). An GOAL 11: SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND Technology policy is in the paper referred to the promotion
exploratory study of sustainable wealth for European COMMUNITIES of digitalization and referred to the evidence that “…cities
knowledge cities. There needs to be a future in which cities provide with more sustainable wealth are better positioned in terms
opportunities for all, with access to basic services, of the labour market and that accessibility, tourism and
energy, housing, transportation and more. connectivity between cities are key factors for the
development of knowledge…” (pg 202)
Nevado-Peña, D., López-Ruiz, V. R., & Alfaro-Navarro, J. GOAL 11: SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND Technology policy is in the paper referred to the diffusion
L. (2015). The effects of environmental and social COMMUNITIES of safety and environmental technologies. The study also
dimensions of sustainability in response to the economic There needs to be a future in which cities provide demonstrates as their effective management together with
crisis of European cities. opportunities for all, with access to basic services, indicators based on social and environmental dimensions of
energy, housing, transportation and more. sustainability, and these have allowed us to corroborate
that the best-ranked cities for knowledge are also those that
have the highest levels of growth in times of crisis ensuring
sustainable growth...Therefore, this is the key strategy for
sustainable and green growth that will allow European
cities to improve the living conditions of its inhabitants and
(continued on next page)
15
Table 7 (continued)
the recovery in economic terms…” (pg. 8266)
Silveira, M. A. (2013). Strategic Management of Innovation GOAL 9: INDUSTRY, INNOVATION Technology policy in the paper is referred to the
Towards Sustainable Development of AND INFRASTRUCTURE BBrazilian experience in the field of solid waste
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to management. since“… as far as Brazil is an emerging
Brazilian Electronics Industry..
achieving sustainable development. economy, it is necessary to develop support mechanisms
for the country's companies, especially for those small
and medium sized and technology intensive, so that they
can develop sustainable competitive advantages that
allow them to face the multiple challenges existing in
national and international markets…” (pg. 180)
CLUSTER 3
Brusca, I., Labrador, M., & Larran, M. (2018). The GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION No reference to technology and Technology policy.
challenge of sustainability and integrated reporting at Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to Policy: “The results will be of interest to policy makers and
improving people's lives and sustainable regulators who decide to implement and standardize
universities: a case study.
sustainability or integrated reporting at HEIs, as well as to
development.
managers and finance directors at universities that wish
to follow these new trends. …The findings can serve as a
learning process for institutions interested in
implementing integrated reporting” (pg. 348)
Cavicchi, C., & Vagnoni, E. (2017). Does intellectual capital GOAL 3: ENSURE HEALTHY LIVES and Technology policy is in the paper referred to technologies and
promote the shift of healthcare organizations towards ICT applications in particular, are considered enablers to
promote well-being for all at all ages
sustainability in the healthcare sector…. they can be used
sustainable development? Evidence from Italy.
in several ways: to assess appropriateness of care
services and drug treatments; to improve physicians’
decision making by the storage of a patient's entire
clinical history; and to increase patients’ ability to manage
their own diseases with the direct and continuous
supervision of healthcare professionals” (pg. 284)
Cavicchi, C. (2017). Healthcare sustainability and the role GOAL 3: ENSURE HEALTHY LIVES and No reference to technology policy. IC and technology in
the paper is focused on the evidence that “hospitals can
of intellectual capital: evidence from an Italian regional promote well-being for all at all ages
contribute to sustainability by: reducing the environmental
health service. impact of their facilities and transport for staff and patients
(where); focusing on prevention and evidence-based care
to minimize care necessities (what); changing the general
models of care furnishing (how), in particular promoting
integration between health and social care, reducing the
inappropriate prescribing of drugs, and exploiting
technological innovations that can guarantee financial,
environmental and social sustainability”
Massaro, M., Dumay, J., Garlatti, A., & Dal Mas, F. GOAL 9: INDUSTRY, INNOVATION No reference to technology policy. The paper highlights
AND INFRASTRUCTURE as “Technology can help companies find new solutions to
(2018). Practitioners’ views on intellectual capital and
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to support accountability. …However, contemporary
sustainability: From a performance-based to a worth-
communication channels are more complex and
based perspective. achieving sustainable development. unstructured… structural capital can contribute by
building tools that increase transparency and
accountability to support social sustainability. (pg. 9)
Secundo, G., Perez, S. E., Martinaitis, Ž., & Leitner, K. H. GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION No reference to technology policy. IC is in the paper
Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to associated to the measurement of the university's
(2017). An Intellectual Capital framework to measure
third mission that is
universities' third mission activities.. improving people's lives and sustainable
“, by nature, closely linked to one of the elements of IC,
development. though, as discussed, the three IC components are
strictly interrelated to form the IC ecosystem. Thus,
continuing education is directly linked with Human Capital
while technology transfer and innovation is more related
to Organisational Capital, and social engagement with
Social Capital” (pg. 234)
No reference to technology policy. IC is in the paper
Tiron-Tudor, A., Nistor, C. S., & Ştefănescu, C. A. (2018). GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION
associated to the technology transfer as “A great
The Role of Universities in Consolidating Intellectual Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to
opportunity for universities is to seek to transfer
Capital and Generating New Knowledge for a improving people's lives and sustainable
technology to the private sector, and therefore capture the
Sustainable Bio-Economy. development.
benefits of commercialization of their innovation and
intellectual property rights through many different
mechanisms” (pg. 601).
Wasiluk, K. L. (2013). Beyond eco-efficiency: understanding GOAL 9: INDUSTRY, INNOVATION No reference to technology policy. The paper focuses on
AND INFRASTRUCTURE IC for highlighting as the “Ongoing evolution, with regard
CS through the IC practice lens.
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to to the approach adopted for the management of IC, is
achieving sustainable development. also helping to drive organisational change towards more
sustainable business models. Each category of IC plays a
role with regard to operationalising CS into practice and
supporting organisational change” (pg. 102).
16
community of interested scholars. The geography of papers retrieved equitable quality education; Goal No. 8, related to the creation of
from our analysis (see Section 3.2.1) is related to journals focused on conditions for the high quality work; Goal No. 9, related to the devel-
IC, Technology Management, and Sustainability. Also, Management opment of resilient infrastructure for sustaining new patterns of in-
jour-nals were included (see Quality - Access to Success. R&D dustrialisation and fostering innovation; Goal No. 11, related to the
management, Amfiteatru Economic, Business Strategy and the development of sustainable cities and communities to make services,
Environment, Tech-nological Forecasting and Social Change). The energy, housing, and transportation accessible; Goal No. 12, related to
different types of jour-nals are justified by the peculiarities of the strings development of sustainable consumption processes and behaviours
adopted for the search. and sustainable production patterns, and Goal No. 17, related to the
More specifically, the Journal of Intellectual Capital presents the highest need for developing partnerships as relational capital useful for the
number of papers published (6) while Sustainable Development has the sustain-able development. This analysis allows identifying the need to
higher number of citations received (299). This trend highlights that the con-solidate the areas already identified at the intersection of IC, in all
most debated research area developed until now is the one related to IC for its components, and SDGs, through conceptual and empirical studies,
sustainable competitive advantage and for value creation at macro (region, as well as investigating the remaining SGDs to assure the full
cities, etc) and micro level (companies, or-ganisations, institutions, etc.). In coverage of all the dimensions of sustainability and to provide broader
terms of higher performances of ci-tations on the number of published implications for development of technology policies.
papers, some relevant journals register a large number of citations with only
1 paper published (as is the case of Sustainable Development, R&D
Management and Technovation). In highlighting the coherence between 4.5. Exploring technological domains for a sustainable development
such journals’ areas of interest with our topics, this analysis offers useful based on IC lens
implications for future studies. From one side, they may provide the root of a
major consolidation of the debate in the outstanding journals identified or The analysis conducted has allowed understanding how in the ac-tual
decide to explore new venues through thematic focuses. In all the cases, digital and knowledge based economy, characterized by the per-
scholars and editors’ active involvement in a larger dissemination ac-tivity, vasiveness of ICT and advanced technologies, IC is a useful lens for
also through co-organisation and sponsorship of thematic tracks within exploiting their potential domains of applications as well as for capi-talising
international conferences could be useful for increasing the impact and their value under the perspectives of human, relational, and structural
interest, as pointed by Massaro et al. (2016). Finally, the collective assets. Despite this, the full comprehension of the antecedents and
scholarship on achieving SDGs looking to the IC perspective is still in the consequences of their implementation is limited in the dimensions of
disclosure and reporting of value creation. This is a common trend
initial phase, although the first papers about the topic appeared in the 2003.
characterising ICTs and the more recent technologies of Big Data, but it
Furthermore, in just a few papers, the concept of ICTs and technology in
interests in the same way also other technological domains.
general as an IC component is now emerging due to the evolution of Digital
economy in the last 10 years. This aspect is providing more impetus to the The existing literature provides us with some insights regarding the
debate about how to afford SDGs and has created a critical mass over the
role of structural capital for sustainability, but no studies were found in
this SLR that link IC, ICT and sustainability. Since ICT is considered to
last 3 years. It not only can provide guidance for policy makers and other
have a vital role to play for sustainable development, detailed and
practitioners, but it has also progressed to being ready for publication in
specific studies are necessary for better understanding its role. An ex-
many premier academic journals. The time is right to move beyond a niche
amination of the link and interaction between new technology areas,
field into the mainstream of scholarly debate.
human development and interaction has not been fully explored
(Gouvea et al., 2018). Further research is needed to better grasp the
role of technologies (as a component of structural capital) in enabling
4.3. The role of IC and sustainable development mainly regarding achieving SGD goals. It has been argued that ICT can accelerate and
scale sustainable development by enabling access to information and
the private sector
services, increased connectivity between individuals, organisations, and
Most of the papers in this literature review dealt with the analysis of networking and efficiency from improved productivity and resource
IC's strategic role in private firms (López-Gamero et al., 2011) and efficiency (Nam, 2015). ICTs arise as technological domain of interest
provided empirical evidence related to the effects of IC on sustainable for future studies as they enable the development of qualitative human,
performance (Dzenpoljac et al., 2016; Nosova et al., 2017), reporting social and structural capital.
and disclosing practices (Oliviera et al., 2010; Liao et al., 2013). Only In the meantime, the analysis of the structural capital could concern
recently have scholars begun to discuss the potential of IC for the exploration of Key Enabling Technologies, as a means for smart
achieving sustainable development in all kinds of organisations, also and sustainable growth of companies and regions. Impacting on the in-
including the public sector and, in particular, higher education and novativeness of existing industrial domains and operating at the foun-
healthcare. This is a context in which sustainability has been discussed dation of new ones (McCann and Ortega-Argiles, 2013; Romano et al.,
as a major chal-lenge to be addressed (United Nations, 2015). Public 2014), such technologies are identified in cross-sectorial and knowl-
sector organisa-tions such as hospitals as social service providers can edge intensive families of technologies (e.g., nanotechnology, micro
play a relevant role in implementing and assessing tracks towards and nano-electronics, advanced materials, biotechnology and photo-
Sustainable Devel-opment (Ball and Bebbington, 2008). They also nics) able to support private organisations and public institutions in the
have relevant respon-sibilities to support the whole society's shift full achievement of several of SGDs. Finally, environmental sustain-
towards sustainability, as their activity substantially impacts society. ability arises in the literature analysed as one of the most common and
relevant dimensions of IC impact on sustainable development
4.4. Relating IC with the SDGs (Januškaitė and Užienė, 2018; Navarro et al., 2014; López-Ruiz, et al.,
2014; Nevado-Peña, et al., 2015). Moreover, its inclusion in the current
The linkage between IC and sustainable development is maturing. The debate is only ancillary to the conception and execution of sustainable
content analysis of the 26 papers reveals the main connection and development strategies by companies and public authorities. Thus, an
implications of each paper with respect to achieving SGDs. As evinced by implication that emerges for policy-makers is related to the creation of
Table 7, IC emerges as more relevant for achievement of sustainable Technology ecosystems, in the aim to foster and sustain inclusive,
growth with clear relevance for goal n. 3, related to the promotion of healthy equitable and sustainable economic development and growth agendas
lives; Goal No. 4, related to development of inclusive and and strategies (Gouvea et al., 2018).
17
Table 8
G. Secundo, et al.
Future agenda: sustainable development, intellectual capital and technology implications.
Technology Policy for Sustainable development Future agenda: Research questions
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) IC determinants Managerial Practices
Strategic aim: Building capacities through the investments How ICTs and digital platforms can allow the
GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION Human capital Education as the main safeguard of a long in ICTs and digital platforms for the sustainable innovation
Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to Structural capital term growth; creation of innovative learning path for the human
improving people's lives and sustainable Social Capital Universities education strengthens the in learning;Processes: • capital creation according to the sustainability
development. innovative ability and the acquisition of Launching of pivotal initiatives and incentives for the perspective?
competitive advantages; development of digital platform to support the sharing Which digital platforms could support the diffusion
Manage human capital to fully exploit the
sources of sustainable competitive
advantage;
• and the diffusion of a “sustainability culture”.
Ensuring that new technologies are used to train all
and the engagement of students for creating a
more “sustainable society”?
sectors of society in systems approaches to global

sustainability. How ICTs and digital platforms can enhance
GOAL 8: DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH Structural capital Creating emotional capital of workers for Strategic aim: Creating new favorable environments and tools
workers’ engagement and create emotional
Sustainable economic growth will require
societies to create the conditions that allow
Social Capital improving companies’ performances
for • human capital enhancement.Processes: capital toward social sustainability?
people to have quality jobs.

Embracing collaborative digital Which digital platforms could enable the sharing of
the “sustainability issues” among the local
platforms as enabler for knowledge community?
sharing, community building and social How ICTS to promote the creation of organizational
GOAL 9: INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND Social Capital Creation of organizational ecosystems for
•
inclusions. ecosystems for the sustainable competitiveness of
INFRASTRUCTURE Human Capital social, economic and environmental Promoting the transfer of technologies from ‘developed’ high-tech SMEs in emerging economies?
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to balance; to ‘less developed’ countries
achieving sustainable development. Accumulate, integrate, and creatively How technologies could enhance Innovation
Strategic aim: Enhancing the competitiveness and
harvesting knowledge to sustain innovation; the innovation performances of companies. and Improve Infrastructure for the achievement
Reputational capital is a significant Processes: of sustainable development?
predictor innovation and venturing activity; Promoting of programs and investments in ICTs, Digital
Diverse human capital implies diverse Technologies and collaborative tools supporting the creation of
sources of social capital that enhances organizational ecosystems and network of SMEs
18
collective creativity.
How to optimize technologies for connectivity,
GOAL 11: SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES Structural Capital Accessibility, tourism and connectivity
transport and logistics for the achievement of
There needs to be a future in which cities provide Social Capital between cities are driver of sustainable
opportunities for all, with access to basic services, development environmental sustainability?
energy, housing, transportation and more. Mechanisms for transforming knowledge Strategic aim: Enhancing infrastructure (such as logistics How ICTs, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence can
and intangible resources into long term support the process of long-term value creation in
infrastructure, innovation platforms, transports,
wealth the context of knowledge cities?
connectivity) to transfer, foster and share innovations for
Environmental and social sustainability to How green technologies can support the creation of a
sustainability.
improve the living conditions of cities’ more efficient management of cities’ waste and
Processes:
Stimulating public and private organizations to launch promote virtuous processes of circular economy?
inhabitants
pivotal initiatives and incentives in the field of ICTs, Big

Data, and Artificial Intelligence for value creation in How new emerging technologies can enable
GOAL12: RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION and Human capital Use the 3 components of IC (human, social traditional and innovative industries;
access, connectivity and efficiency for the
CONSUMPTION Structural capital and structural) as a tool to create value with promotinginvestments in green technologies,
Ensure sustainable consumption and production Social capital the help of trained, educated, and creative innovation processes supporting (social, economic
waste management and circular economy
patterns employees Strategic aim: Harnessing the potentialities of digitalization, and environmental) sustainability?
Better understanding of how intellectual ICT, big data, online collaborative platforms, nano-
capital develops and drives performance technologies to achieve sustainable innovation.
Disclosing sustainability information about Processes: Embracing campaigns and initiatives of
the leads toward creation of reputational sensitization and awareness creation on the benefits of
capital and sustainable competitive green behavior and new sustainable consumption and
advantage production models.
IC is a forerunner for the creation of high
technologies that ensure sustainable
development of the economy How digital technologies can support the creation
GOAL 17: PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS Structural Capital Media and government efficiency to lead
of transnational partnership for environmental
Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable Social Capital social and environmental sustainability
sustainability?
development Strategic aim: Building a culture of the collaboration and
networking for development.
Processes: formulating and executing interventions by
public and private organizations for enhancing the adoption
of ICTs and media for higher education.
5. Technology policy and IC for sustainable development: a management literature and the literature about the different SDGs,
future research agenda knowledge development about the role of IC for the SDGs could be
framed in different journals. We think that the 17 SDGs goals could
The analysis conducted in terms of thematic clustering, content have a knowledge development process in several journals where the
analysis and citations’ impact allows deriving some useful insights re- topic is analysed. The common point to the several journals should be
garding what is provided by the literature so far in terms of technology
analysis of the phenomenon through the IC lens.
policy. Specifically, the focus of our SLR on IC, technology and SDGs
suggests the opportunity to define a policy mix as the combination of 6. Conclusion and limitations
different policy instruments and strategic actions for sustainable de-
velopment of technology and innovation (Rogge and Reichardt, 2016; In this study's conclusions, it is important to recall the paper's aim
Lehmann, 2012). of understanding the state of the art in the literature at the intersection
As reported in Table 7, we found some references regarding tech- of IC and SDGs, with a specific focus on technology policies and its
nology policy in 10/26 papers. Therefore, such insight could be a future research due to the debate's infancy phase.
starting point for defining the state of the art of literature regarding IC, Accordingly, the paper offered an outline of past and present
SDG and technology policy, as well as for defining the most relevant debate through a structured review of the papers published in journals
areas where future research could be concentrated. This is especially from 2003 through 2018.
true if we consider that the phenomenon is still in its infancy. As Massaro et al. (2016) argued, an SLR “is not the end of the road, but
Table 8 presents some of the main technology policies already re- the beginning of new journeys.” Despite the positive relationship between
ported in the existing literature. Although it is still in its early stages, IC and sustainability, full comprehension of their linkage and intrinsic
our research reveals that some contributions related to technology meaning for the development of technology policies calls for a deeper
polices are being highlighted. The technology polices mainly regard: understanding, mainly regarding the implications in terms of technology
policies. Therefore, this paper calls for future developments more focused
• Building capacities through investments in ICTs and digital plat- on the specific theme with reference to technology policy.
forms for sustainable innovation in learning. Specifically, their intersection discloses several areas of in-depth
• Developing digital platforms to support technology transfer capa- study related to the need of overcoming the fragmented
comprehension of how the adoption of IC in the debate on sustainable
cities and dissemination of a “sustainability culture.”
• Embracing collaborative digital platforms to enable knowledge development can support the development of technology policies
aligned with the SDGs of United Nations.
sharing, community building and social inclusions.
• Harnessing the potentialities of digitalisation, ICT, big data, online Although the number of papers published on IC and SDGs in the
period 2003-2018 reached a consistent volume, the analysis of their
collaborative platforms, nano-technologies to achieve sustainable
meaning, dynamics and implementation is still dominated by unrelated
innovation.
research, with a wide range of thematic specialisations shaped by
Promote networking and collaboration among different stake- value creation at micro and macro level, regional development in the
holders. In addition, a future research agenda is depicted (see Table 8) context of the knowledge economy, sustainable development in public
considering the SDGs emerging from research, IC determinants, man- and private sector. Trends observed in terms of authors’ productivity,
agerial practices highlighted in the paper analysed, and finally, the im-pact of their research in terms of citations, and their geographical
technology role for this important achievement at global level. Ac- areas depicts a scientific community that is still dispersed, with limited
cordingly, evidence for the development of technology policies based col-laborations. Moreover, the number of authors really focused on the
on IC has been identified with the aim to cover areas that are still un- topics with outstanding performances is still limited. In all cases, it is far
explored or under researched and to derive roots for research and from the superstar effect (Serenko, et al., 2011). Despite this, the trend
policy makers’ future agendas. In achieving a sustainable goal, it is of renewed interest during 2018 is promising.
compulsory to consider some critical features to make them coherent As for the publications’ venues, a coherent correspondence has
with the requirements of a sustainability policy mix as identified by been identified between the journals’ thematic specialisation and the
Rogge and Reichardt (2016) in terms of strategic goal and processes. higher number of publications and scientific contributions published,
Additionally, in all of them, respect has been assured for their model's although their number is limited to four. Meanwhile, the remaining
third element consisting of characteristics of consistency, coherence, other papers were dispersed and located with a single contribution in
credibility, and comprehensiveness. By focusing on IC and other journals. All this highlights the need for consolidating the
technologies as drivers for achieving SDGs, these policies will impact a relevance of the issues of IC and Sustainable Development in their
global community of actors, they must be able to shape countries’ projection toward devel-opment of technology polices in terms of co-
boundaries and allow achieving ambitious goals (Stafford-Smith, et al., authorships among foreign authors, new contexts of explorations, and
2017; Edmondson, et al., 2018). Since the SLR contribution request is journals with thematic specialisations.
to provide inspiration for future studies, the table also defines for each Content analysis in the paper has allowed identifying three main
SDG the main IC components, the associated managerial practice, thematic clusters as main areas of specialisation of the scientific debate,
technology policy and research questions. with related sub areas. Despite the absence of an explicit specialisation on
The emerging research areas call for more specific contributions by the topic, three main areas arise around the following thematic clusters: 1)
academics for understanding: IC components for achieving Sustainable Development in Private Sector; 2)
How can ICTs and digital platforms allow the creation of innovative IC for Sustainable Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy; and
learning paths for human capital creation according to the sustain-ability finally 3) IC for Sustainable Development in Public Sector.
perspective? Which digital platforms could support dissemina-tion and The analysis of papers included in these three areas allowed out-lining
student engagement for creating a more “sustainable society”? Which areas of specialisation in terms of conceptual models, reviews of the
digital platforms could enable sharing “sustainability issues” among the literature, interpretative models, metrics, and impacts on private companies
local community? How could technologies enhance Innovation and and public organisations. Implications in terms of tech-nology policies have
Improving Infrastructure for achieving sustainable de-velopment?, etc. been highlighted at the intersection of the research between IC and
Specifically, Table 8 lists the main emerging areas regarding the specific Sustainable Development. The critical reading of the papers included in the
SDG resulting from our study. Finally, we think that since the analysis of IC thematic clusters allowed identifying, regarding some specific SDGs, the
and SDGs lies at the intersection between IC dimensions of IC impacting and the managerial
19
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considering the scope of the topic. Although we tried to limit such bias Kessler, M.M., 1963. Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. Am. Document. 14
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Technological Forecasting & Social Change 153 (2020) 119917

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technological Forecasting & Social Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techfore

Sustainable development, intellectual capital and technology policies: A

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

1. Introduction climate change, pollution, migration, ecosystem resilience, food se-

3.1.1. Articles’ evolution in time

3.1.2. Geography of the articles

Fig. 2. Trend of the published articles over the timeframe 2005-2018.

Fig. 3. Geography of the articles by number of items per country.

Fig. 4. Geography of the articles by number of citations/cited items per country.

Bibliographic coupling (Kessler, 1963) considering the 51 papers in-cluded

second research area emerging is related to the greater awareness of

pital (Chahal and Bakshi, 2016), or by assisting organisations to im-

firms operating in high-technology sector, banking sector or bio-

Some of the main contributions include: Hayton's (2005) study that

highly influence the innovative capability of firms as well as corporate

US highlights the relationship between IC components and their en-

trepreneurial behaviour as a source of sustainable competitive ad-

improve banks’ structural capital by boosting employees’ innovation

introduces the term ‘Sustainable intellectual capital’ as a relevant

indicates that sustainable IC supports the accumulation and uti-lisation

provements, as well as bolstering the relationship between firms and

and provides practical insights on how IC could contribute to the

the emergence of human capital as a pillar of corporate social re-

Category Citations received by the papers published each year

Category Citations received by the papers published each year Total

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Fig. 5. Number of citations received by articles over the timeframe 2005-2018.

manage these components for sustainable value and advantage. The

867. Knowledge Economy

Journal of Cases on Information

2015. At country level, the National IC is identified as an alternative lens on

of a nation, by considering intangible assets, such as human development,

national image, employment conditions, environment, innovation. Moving

from this assumption, Navarro et al. (2014) propose a scorecard for

measuring national in-tangible assets composed by six main dimensions of

At regional level, scholars confirm that IC is relevant for the full

tiveness, as found by Januškaitè and Užienè (2018) that explore the

intersection between IC and sustainable regional competitiveness

through a structured literature review and analysis of indexes (World

Sustainable development and intangibles: Building sustainable intellectual capital

competitive advantage (see Table 7).

The contextualisation at city level is predominant in this cluster,

mainly regarding its knowledge-intensive characterisation (López-Ruiz

et al., 2014). Aimed to support achieving sustainability, better conditions

The authors focus on IC as an umbrella under which all the dimensions

communities. The paper of Nevado-Peña et al. (2015n) posits a IC

authors analysed a set of social and environmental efficiency indicators

growth patterns analysed, environmental sustainability, with specific

de Leaniz P.M.G., del Bosque I.R.

recycling and waste management policies, is crucial for most of the

in achieving sustainable growth mainly focusing on human capital. Specifically,

create a more responsible and widespread culture of en-vironmental

Table 4 third mission performance in terms of goals (continuing education,

Fig. 7. Keywords’ Clusters.