Intellectual Capital and Gender Capital: The Case of Italian Universities

This chapter aims to understand whether the organizations characterized by the culture of diversity and inclusion are organizations that promote the creation of value. Starting from the hypothesis that gender capital, considered as gender diversity within a business reality, facilitates the transfer of interpersonal skills and relationships with stakeholders and company culture, our analysis is aimed at assessing the impact of gender capital on intellectual capital of organizations and, in particular, on its components (human capital, relational capital, structural capital). The research proposes a quantitative method. In the first step of the analysis, for each university the number of women full professors, associate professors and researchers are identified as independent variables. In the second step, the intellectual capital components are identified by the quota premium that universities receive from the ministry for research and teaching activities as dependent variables. To assess the impact that gender capital has on intellectual capital, the independent variables are correlated with the dependent variables. This methodology allows us to understand if the culture of diversity is able to generate greater value within organizations, in particular, if women’s skills can make a real difference to foster the competitive advantage of an organization. Moreover, this study contributes expanding the literature on gender studies and it offers a new perspective applied to the concept of gender capital. The outcomes of the application are related to a better understanding the need to fill the cultural and social gap. The results allow asserting that to implement diversity within organizations and develop the principle of inclusion enables to create greater value in organizations.