An investigation of the intellectual capital effects on relative efficiency

Increasing competitive advantage is the access key to future market share as the expanding global economy. Effective management of intellectual capital is valuable for business enterprise and also improves its competitive advantage. In this regard، the present study has been designed to investigate the effects of intellectual capital and its components on the cost، revenue and profit efficiency of Boushehr’s production cooperatives. In this study، the value added intellectual capital coefficient (Paalik model) and data envelopment analysis method have been used to measure intellectual capital and cost، revenue and profit efficiency respectively. In this study، the selected time period covers the years 2009 and 2010 and the used sample includes 84 production cooperatives in Boushehr province. Moreover، combined data regression has been used to test six hypotheses which have been designed to evaluate the effect of intellectual capital and its components (human capital، structural capital and employed capital) on cost، revenue، and profit efficiency. The results derived from testing hypotheses revealed that intellectual capital has a significant and positive impact on the profit efficiency of production cooperatives. However، the impact of intellectual capital and its components on the cost and revenue efficiency has not been confirmed. Therefore، it can be stated that intellectual capital can help cooperatives in improving performance and increasing profitability and also، the performance can be improved by correct management.