Intellectual capital in Galician common forests

Abstract

Forest communities around the world are becoming increasingly involved in sustainable forest management and intellectual capital view can orient the outcome. This paper aims to identify the principal components of intellectual capital, in its three dimensions; human, structural and relational (internal and external) capital, and their relationships in the governance of communal forests. Focusing on Galician communal forests, in north-west Spain, a survey was conducted among community representatives, analysing using principal components how they structure their intellectual capital, and based on these, through an oblimin (0.5) rotation. Linear correlations among these components were assessed to determine the relationship of the components with each other. Galician communal forests present a composition of intellectual capital components which differ from those of for-profit firms and are closer to those of other social entities. The complex interrelations between the different elements of intellectual capital suggest different typologies of forest communities.