Intellectual Capital Management in Egypt’s National Centre for Educational Research and Development (NCERD): A case study

With the challenges presented by the knowledge economy, research centers play an increased role in the creation and dissemination of new knowledge that is crucial for informing policy and practice in different fields.
Therefore, importance should be given to evaluating and developing these research centers’ practices for managing their resources especially the intangible ones- commonly known as Intellectual capital (IC).
The significant role of effective (IC) management in building organizational capacities for improvement, especially for knowledge-intensive organizations, is well documented. However, studies that have been done to investigate the IC management practices in research centers, especially in developing countries, are rare and not found in the field of education. Hence, this study seeks to bridge this research gap by investigating IC management practices within the National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD) in Egypt.
The study also aims to propose some operational recommendations that could promote more effective IC management in the NCERD whereby improving its performance.
The paper adopts case study as a qualitative research method.
Triangulation of data drawn from multiple sources of evidence are used, namely document analysis, participant observation, and interviews with a sample of the researchers working in the Center. A deductive coding approach to data analysis was used whereby classification and coding of data was based on the theoretical model developed from the literature review.
 A narrative report was presented as congruent with qualitative methods. Findings suggest that the three IC components are poorly managed in the NCERD. Operational recommendations are suggested to promote IC management practices in the NCERD, and as such enhance the NCERD’s role in informing educational policy and promoting evidence-based practice in the educational institutions. The suggested recommendations keep up with Egypt’s Vision 2030 towards maximizing the intangible assets in public organizations through adopting effective knowledge management (KM), and human resource management (HRM) systems.