Can Elements of Intellectual Capital Improve Business Sustainability?—The Perspective of Managers of SMEs in Poland

Abstract

Many organizations choose business sustainability to meet environmental, social, and financial demands to ensure responsible and long-term success. In order to achieve this, enterprises have to fully and optimally apply their resources. Intellectual capital is one of their most important resources creating market value and reinforcing sustainable competitive advantages. The main goal of the paper is to indicate which elements of the intellectual capital of small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland have the greatest impact on their sustainable development in the opinions of managers. The study took into account 1041 economic entities. Managers of small and medium enterprises operating in Poland have been asked to assess the elements of intellectual capital. The paper utilizes a new approach to the importance assessment of the impact of each characteristic on business sustainability. It is based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets. The proposed method is especially useful when variables are measured on an ordinal scale. In accordance with the classical theory of measurement, it does not allow the majority of arithmetic calculations to be performed. Based on the results of the research it has been determined that the most important factors are those which constitute human capital. Moreover, the observation has been made that there is a high degree of coherence of opinions expressed by managers of small and medium enterprises. The results of the research can be applied by both managers of enterprises in managing intellectual capital and employees of companies, by increasing their awareness of the topic of the influence of intellectual capital on business sustainability.