Importance of intellectual capital resources in rural development using the fsQCA method as an example

The aim of this paper is to present the context of intellectual capital in rural area development using the example of fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), which is one of the few methodological innovations of recent decades and which bridges the gap between quantitative and qualitative research. Based on surveys and interviews with local organizations, the study examined the relationships between the results of work and the composition of variables that constitute intellectual capital components. The results, related to intellectual capital, were divided into three variables representing human capital (education, experience-years of work, language skills), structural capital (presence of IT system in an organization, the number of procedures and processes) and relational capital (the number of cooperating organizations, the number of NGOs in the community, the level of trust in the manager). The research outcomes showed that different combinations of intellectual capital components led in practice to the same result; nevertheless, human capital was an indispensable element of the combination.