Identification and Prioritization of performance evaluation indicators of knowledge-based companies

The importance of knowledge-based companies in the economies of the countries and their role in GNP has increased in recent years, and many efforts have been made to develop a comprehensive and consistent indicators for evaluating these companies. The issue of performance evaluation of these companies is still new in Iran, and in the past, many studies have not been conducted on suitable examples of these companies. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify and categorize the most important and effective indicators in the performance of knowledge-based companies, in line with the industry conditions in Iran. Initial indicators are extracted from literature review, related documents and initial interviews with experts in this field. Then, final indicators are determined through designing and distributing questionnaires, structured interviews with experts and analyzing the results of received questionnaires. After validating the final indices, 22 indicators are verified and categorized into 5 groups, and finally, by computing the coefficients of variance (CV), the indexes are arranged from the most important to the least significant. Accordingly, the added value resulting from the technology used in the product, the level of education of the employees and the number of R & D staff are the most important, respectively. Due to the fact that these results are directly related to the experts in this field, it is expected that using the data of knowledgeable companies and implementation on one of the appropriate models of performance evaluation will result in meaningful result.