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1. Introduction
Technology has significantly been altering our lifestyle and life concepts, impacting on the workplace and the private space, creating alternative realities that we can operate within, such as a “real, or analog” and a “virtual and digital” reality. Rapid change is a significant element of these developments (Bonilla et al., 2018). Also, new generations, such as Gen Y and Gen Z, consider speed an important work achievement (Barac et al., 2016). What is generically referred to as new technologies encompasses a wide variety of practices and artefacts that support, actively create and connect the various realities we can experience in different contexts.
Connectivity is one of the most important characteristics of new technologies (Barac et al., 2016), and the growing network, which they form and are part of, is one of the most important features of recent technological developments. Such new technologies include Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems (CPSs), Internet of Services (IoS), blockchain and big data analytics (BDA), as well as various applications related to social media, augmented and virtual realities (Bonilla et al., 2018). The total connectivity concept is the underlying foundation for the global brain, which ultimately refers to different types of technologies connecting through the internet and creating a network of all users who communicate across the world. The global brain is adopted, as it reflects the fourth stage of intellectual capital research, which focusses on the eco-systems in which such capital is created and utilised (Dumay and Garanina, 2013; Dumay, 2016). In particular, the current study seeks to investigate these new forms of intellectual capitals in support of megatrends, such as organisational value creation and contribution to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Adams, 2017) and manage sustainability, in general (Massaro et al., 2018). The definition of intellectual capital adopted in the current study refers to the sum of knowledge existing within an organisation that provides the competitive edge and can be used to create value (Dumay, 2016). Value creation is considered in terms of Dumay’s (2016) types of value: monetary (primary value), utility (usefulness of goods and services provided for stakeholders and in terms of generating monetary value), social (benefit to society in general) and sustainable (cornerstone of fourth stage, also...