ABSTRACT
Management and organization theorists’ interest in “organizational capital,” as something distinct from the organization’s fi nancial and physical capital, goes back at least to the time of Adam Smith and his political-economy colleagues. In spite of their obvious academic interests they were practical men and closely observed the workings of the world around them. Unlike many of our economist colleagues, they had no problem seeing the economic impact of people’s knowledge and skills. They also recognized the very real costs of acquiring them and so were interested in an economics of human knowledge.
