It also includes knowledge, capabilities, procedures and systems which are developed from relationships with external agents.
[3] There are major conceptual differences between industrial and regional economists in their views towards relational capital.
There have been research studies applying quantitative, empirical, and econometric techniques in an effort to verify the existence of relational capital and its importance to the innovation activity in firms.
Proxies are found to represent the channels through which knowledge develops at the local level and therefore indirectly of relational capital.
Edvinsson and Malone (1997) and Brooking (1996) are pioneers in working with intellectual capital.