36 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 3 The Management of Knowledge Resources within Private Organisations: Some European “Better Practice” Illustrations Federica Ricceri University of Padua, Italy James Guthrie University of Bologna, Italy Rodney Coyte The University of Sydney, Australia abstraCt National economies have rapidly moved from their industrial economic base and shifted towards a knowledge base, in which wealth creation is associated with the ability to develop and manage knowl- edge resources (KR) (see, among others, MERITUM, 2002; EC, 2006). Several national and interna- tional institutions have produced various Intellectual Capital (IC) frameworks 1 and guidelines (e.g. MERITUM, 2002; SKE, 2007; EC, 2006) to guide in the management, measurement and reporting of IC. However, there appear to be few studies of private company practices (Guthrie & Ricceri, 2009). The above informed the following two research questions of our study: (1) In what ways, did the private companies express their strategy and the role of KR within it? (2) What tools, including ‘inscription devices’, were used for understanding and managing KR within a specifc organisation? This chapter answers these questions by providing illustrations of KR and their management in practice in a variety of private companies. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-829-6.ch003