This was an easy to read guide to intangibles. It started at the beginning with a simple explanation of what intangibles are and as you go through the book, it gradually dug deeper and deeper into the issues that businesses are facing with measuring intangibles in the current economy. By the end of the book, I had learned more than I had expected about intangibles. There were no complicated tables or graphs included--the author gave real world examples to issues with intangibles, which was a great way to emphasize his points or make the reader really understand his explanations. The appendices in the back of the book also provide information about various accounting rules and regulations for the different categories of intangible assets as well as defining intellectual capital management best practices, which are very useful in the new technology economy. I would recommend this book to anyone beginning to study or learn about intangible assets. Before I read the book, I had very little experience with intangible assets, but the book gave me a better understanding of the background of intangibles.
As we have been moving to a technology-based economy and we are seeing a decrease in the strictly bricks and mortar companies,it seems like now is the time for the business world to see the importance of the measurement of intangible assets. It is not enough for management of companies to know these intangibles exist, they need to find a way to relay that information to the shareholders of the company. I believe this book helps to add to the argument for increased focus on intangibles.

I am writing this review in the perspective of using this book as an instructional tool for intangibles. I found the book extremely easy to read. It was straight forward and included a large amount of relevant information concerning the problems connected to the lack of disclosure of intangibles. The book was not filled with equations or pages of models but simply the authors views on the need for changes in intangible recognition. I did not agree with all the authors' views but can say that I agreed with the majority of them. I felt the author laid the book out in a nice format. He started with a basic definition of intangibles and the problems associated with the lack of their disclosure. He ended with his solutions to the problems and other alternative solutions. The back of the book contains the actual rules and regulations for intangibles and best practices for intellectual capital management.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about intangibles and the reasons for the present lack of disclosure. The appendix in the back of the book can be used for reference material in reports for present intangible regulations. The book provides much thought in the possible areas of change for the future of intangible disclosure. I believe that the future will include intangible asset disclosure and this book brings to light many possible future solutions to consider. I believe the book was well worth the money spent and the time consumed reading it was to my benefit.

It isn't easy to make a book about accounting interesting and uplifting, but this book comes fairly close to accomplishing that. It provides a clear understanding of why it matters how well accounting rules treat intangible assets, and gives some good guidelines on how to improve them.
Some of the proposed improvements are fairly easy to evaluate, such as breaking down R&D into subcategories for basic research, improvements to recently released products, etc., but with some of the book's suggestions (e.g. trademarks) I'm puzzled as to whether there's little to be gained or whether he has a good idea that he hasn't adequately explained.
Alas, accounting standards are a public good that few people have an incentive to create. The improvements suggested by the book could generally be adopted without first being approved by a standards committee because they mostly involve adding new information to reports. But the first company to adopt them gains little until investors can compare the information with that from other companies. And accounting standards committees tend to attract people whose main concern is preventing harm rather than creating new value. And that tendency is currently being reinforced by investors who want a scapegoat for their complacency at the peak of the recent stock market bubble.

This book was published 2001 by Brookings as part of a pair; the other being Unseen Wealth

Lev's book comprised his view, whereas Unseen Wealth included about 20 views including Lev's

Lev is primarily concerned with helping the accounting industry fill its black hole; intangibles being the difference between market value and the tangibles that the 100 years rules of tangible accounting prescribe for. Formerly this blackhole was also known as goodwill.

The trouble is as the service and globally/locally networked economies compounded over the last quarter century, goodwill (or transparent trustflows of an organisation mapped in flows of productivities and demands and across to partnering organisations) became the larger dynamic explaining how most value compounds (both finacially and in human terms like learning, community, social progress that take more than 90 days to invest in and may have diverse views of development).

I dont find in Lev's book any answers to such issues as how to resolve the wicked assumptions that all tangible accounting revolve round. These include:
people are costs, only machines are investments

separate units, separate 90 day periods rather than want to map how they interact and compound in non-lonear ways

What is really needed for tracking, strategizing, transparently governing, leading, developing intangibles (and human relationships) is an opposite type of maths that value multiplies instead of separating out bottom lines as if everything in teh world adds up perfectly in 90 days periods. Whilst Unseen Wealth is clear about the magnitude of the Intangibles Crisis, Lev is not so clear. However, his work is the middleground and epicentre if you are looking at intangibles only from the perspective of what to do if you are intent on perpetuating the traditional accounting profession as nearly as possible as is.

The discipline of intangible management (knowledge management) has been around for decades; there have been many attempts in better understanding & management of intangible assets, with different perspective (organizational learning, technology, strategy etc). Lev has provided a very concise analysis of intangible management with an economics perspective. His analysis is very systematic, robust, with support of empirical studies; his treatment of the subject is coherent & enjoyable to read. But I find the recommendation part of the book slightly weak; the 'value chain scorecard' does not provide significant enhancement over Kaplan & Norton's balanced scorecard.