The 6th International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics aimed to encourage discussions about intellectual capital research and management practices for addressing the challenges and opportunities present in today’s service-dominant business landscape. The IFKAD community is built on the premise that organisational knowledge assets represent the key value drivers of modern organisations of the post-industrial knowledge society. While we have been witnessing an evolution towards the knowledge society, a simultaneous shift from industrial to service activities has taken place. In fact, in many countries services already account for as much as 70-80 percent out of all economic activities. As a result, the service management discipline has evolved to examine the specific issues related to the service context.
In addition to the significance of the services sector, the service theme was selected for IFKAD 2011 for the following reasons. First, service management and IC management have a lot in common. By definition, services can be viewed as intangible products and the act of servicing can be interpreted as the application of knowledge and skills by one organization for the benefit of another. Thus, in both service and IC management disciplines the key challenges underpin the issue of dealing with intangible phenomena and creating value from them. Second, the IC approach offers both analytical and managerial tools which seem well-suited for addressing some of key the service management challenges. Similarly, we can assume that the service management theories and models might facilitate a better understanding on how knowledge assets can be turned into customer value. So far, only limited attention has been paid on research linking the IC and service themes.
The 6th IFKAD 2011 was organized by the Institute of Knowledge Asset Management, Tampere University of Technology and University of Basilicata. The event was held on 15-17 June 2011 in Tampere, Finland.

First, papers discussing the role of knowledge assets in company value creation were invited from different perspectives such as the following:

• The impacts of IC management – lessons learned from applying IC management
• Intelligent cities, regions and nations: how IC contributes to national and regional prosperity?
• Managing the “soft” dimensions of organisational performance, e.g. energy, passion and trust
• Measuring IC and intangible phenomena in general – what is new in the measurement area?
• Information systems and technologies to support IC and KM activities
• Embedding IC perspective in other (traditional or emerging) managerial disciplines
• Business models for capitalising on IC

Second, IFKAD 2011 encourages especially contributions discussing the role of IC in the context of services, e.g. from the following perspectives:

• Managing IC in service organisations
• IC and challenges facing the public sector
• Knowledge-intensive services – how to manage intangible key assets and outputs?
• Managing the co-creation (customer-producer interaction; knowledge flows) of services
• Measuring service productivity: capturing the intangible service outputs / outcomes
• Linking the research streams of IC management and service management
• Understanding value creation in complex service systems, e.g. cities and value networks

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