The Role of Intellectual Capital on promoting the Performance of Knowledge-Based Companies with Futures studies approach: A Qualitative Study

Futures Studies is the knowledge of intelligent analysis, design and establishment of future, an effort which analyzes resources and patterns to visualize the future and plan for it. The most important function of future studies is to create an image of the future to improve it. Knowledge-based companies, as the most tangible method of commercialization of the results of high tech research and producing a high added value, require a concept to provide a picture of the future for improvement and performance enhancements. As a result, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of intellectual capital on promoting the performance of knowledge-based companies with a Futures studies approach. Conducting the research with a qualitative method, for the in-depth study of the concepts concerned, the method of studying the documents and examining theoretical foundations as well as semi-structured interviews were used. Participants, 15 experts and specialists well-known in the knowledge-based companies of North Khorasan in the year 97 which were selected using purposeful sampling and snowball method to theoretical saturation boundary. In order to check the accuracy of the findings, the method of investigation by the members was used. To determine the reliability, a reliability method between two encoders was used. Data analysis was performed using inductive content analysis (6-step technique of Auerbach and Silverstein). Findings showed that with futuristic approach, the effect of intellectual capital on improving the performance of knowledge-based companies can be seen in two categories; inter-organizational effects (innovation and value creation, team building and decentralization, organizational learning, knowledge management, transformational leadership, meritocracy, technology acceptance) and external effects (networking, customer valuation and market orientation, branding and internationalization). This model can be used in decisions made to improve the performance of each company in accordance with the corporate strategy and culture