Building Customer Capital Through Knowledge Management Processes in the Healthcare Context

In a dynamic knowledge economy, sources for companies' competitive advantages are mainly in the realm of intangibles, such as intelligence, flexibility and innovativeness of people. The concept of intellectual capital attempts to capture more than mere physical assets or financial capital of a managed system but to reflect a concerted effort in the system to account for all and to effectively manage the intangible ones. Customer capital, as an essential part of intellectual capital, is the value embedded in the marketing channels and customer relationship with the organization. In the healthcare sector, consumers are becoming the driving force to the innovation of healthcare delivery in the knowledge economy. Patients have transformed from passive care receivers to consumers who take an active role in their care based on choice and information that are available to them. When strategizing for the future, market assessment from the customers' perspective has become pivotal. This research aims to discern how healthcare providers are able to capitalize on the knowledge management infrastructure and processes to enhance organizational learning and in turn their consumer capital.