Being about a so important asset, it is indispensable to evaluate it with objectivity. We believe that no definitive method or system of information with data enough, exists to give the value the company available knowledge.

It is truth that the assets of the company are raised in the accounting system and must be evidenced in the Balance Sheet. But, accountants will say, on the basis of the General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - especially of the prudence - that we does not have to attribute any value to unknown assets.

Is It correct to determine the value of the company only from the assets of the Accounting Balance? Perhaps, after audited and conveniently adjusted to the real value.

Did we include all the assets? Tangible and intangible ones? Did the auditors use adequate evaluation criterion? Definitely, questioning the market is considered the best reference of assets value.

The market value of a company, evaluated by price of each stock times the number of shares, is normally very upper to whom it consists of the Balance. For the listed Portuguese companies in the Lisbon Stock market, the difference between the book value and market value is large. You can see the following figure, that the relation between the average of the ratios of the listed companies almost tripled from 1991 to 1999:

According to Professor Keith Bradley of Open Business School (UK), this difference has come to also accent itself in the American economy. He relates that in last 20 years it has had a considerable widening of the difference between the market value and the book value to the quoted companies. The average of the ratio Market-to-Book defined for these two values in the companies of the US between 1973 and 1993 magnified from 0.82 to 1.692.

This difference is visible over all in the value attributed for occasion of acquisitions or merging of the companies. One of the examples very related in dedicated literature to the subject is the acquisition of the LOTUS for IBM in 1995 for 3.5 billions of dollar with a book value of only 0.23 billions of dollar. This colossal difference is explained for the value of the customers databases, knowledge of the employees and over all for the ability of the management to involve all the company in the development and production of the LOTUS YOU NOTICE at the exact moment.

If the tangible assets in books of the company represent so little of the company value, then it has intangible assets, not considered in the Balance. The analysis of this situation makes to appear complex and a very difficult question to answer. For example: Is the difference between the market value and the book value of the company entirely due to the presence of intangible assets as the knowledge in the capital form? It will be possible to attribute, objectively, a value to the knowledge of the company, detaching it or not of other parcels that eventually exist?

In the line of these concerns and trying to find reply to the placed questions, Leif Edvinsson supports that the traditional model of accounting that so shiningly recorded the enterprise operations throughout half millennium, is now to show incapable to follow the evolution verified in the enterprise activity. It is necessary to identify and to measure the assets entered currently to give objectivity to the enterprise systems of information. Leif Edvinsson alerts for the consequences of this situation when he says that "an economy that cannot measure its value adequately cannot distribute with objectivity and severity its features nor to reward its citizens adequately ". It is not possible to remunerate unknown factors objectively, therefore one considers of extreme importance the identification and measurement of the assets that count for the value of the company.

Recent literature on this subject considers some forms of evaluation of the intangible assets, assuming that they are fit in the concept of knowledge capital, but still lacks to analyze the objectivity of these models through its application to the reality, with data you wove and comparable.