Intellectual Capital and Creative Economy as Key Drivers for Competitiveness Towards a Smart and Sustainable Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Cultural and Creative Communities

Intellectual capital (IC) and the creative-economy (CE) are topics of great interest to the people professionally concerned with the future of the world in the context of the challenges induced by the fourth industrial revolution. One of the biggest challenges of our modern society is to address the differences in competitiveness and economic performances among different countries and regions based on core principles for a smart, sustainable and inclusive development. The main goal of this chapter is to highlight the importance of a new way of thinking based on a modern theoretical and strategic-operational framework dedicated to the analyze of the key role of intellectual capital and creative economy as drivers for a knowledge and innovation-based society. Some of the new international benchmarking methods will be also taken into account, like the Beyond GDP metrics, Global Creativity Index or Happy Planet Index. We will also look on some regional benchmarking methods such as the European Innovation Scoreboard released in 2016 and the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor 2017. We consider that also the locally and regional focus developed strategies have to be design such as to enhance intellectual capital and creative economy. One specific objective of our chapter is to identify which of the new benchmarking methods may mostly help policy-makers to orient countries and regions’ efforts towards focusing on competitiveness and sustainability. This will mean not only to improve the underperforming areas, but also to explore the specific opportunities in order to establish and develop, mostly based on a medium and long-run perspective, effective and efficient smart, creative and innovative sustainable communities.