Perception of lecturers of public and private universities on the importance of university’s intellectual capital: A case study in West Sumatra province of Indonesia

Abstract

The intellectual capital is an important element that must be managed seriously because it is believed to be able to increase the ranking of a university. This study was conducted to examine the lecturers’ perceptions on the importance of intellectual capital in public and private universities in West Sumatra province of Indonesia. The sampled universities for this study were taken from www.4icu.org website. The Independent Sample t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings proved that there was difference on the perception on the importance of intellectual capital between the lecturers in public and private universities in West Sumatra. The public university lecturers gave a better perception of intellectual capital compared to the private university lecturers. In fact, with regards to the individual element of intellectual capital, the lecturers’ perceptions on the relational capital were also different. However, there was no difference in perceptions between the lecturers in public and private universities concerning the human capital and structural capital.