ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the path that critical intellectual capital (IC) research has followed from its early days before and just after the new millennium, to where it stands in contemporary times. The original turning point is arguably an article by Jan Mouritsen, which introduces a different way of thinking about IC based on the work of Latour, using the dichotomy of ostensive versus performative IC. While Sveiby was criticizing IC from a measurement perspective, a substantive critique of IC was also emerging from articles published by critical scholars in the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) in 2001 as well as the JIC in two special issues in 2004 by Marr and Chatzkel and 2006 by O'Donnell et al. The prominent critical article in the special issue is by Roslender and Fincham, who examine the debate about IC accounting for reporting and managerial purposes versus IC providing its own accounts, "rather than remaining imprisoned within accounts devised by others".
