Intellectual Capital Reporting: Academic Utopia or Corporate Reality in a Brave New World?

Abstract

Intellectual capital creates company value but generally this value is not recognised in the financial statements of companies. This report moves forward the debate on how intellectual capital should be recognised and/or disclosed in the annual reports of companies by offering new evidence regarding the views of finance directors, human resources specialists and marketing specialists, all of whom have a particular interest in intellectual capital resources. The issues investigated include: the relative importance of intellectual capital components to the generation of company value; the level of internal management use compared to external disclosure of intellectual capital; the incentives and disincentives for disclosure; and the effectiveness of the annual report and other forms of corporate communication for the disclosure of intellectual capital. The generally high level of variation in responses shows that there is considerable diversity in the extent of company value attributable to intellectual capital and in disclosure incentives and disincentives and hence in disclosure content and the communication channels used. The authors conclude that it is this diversity which represents the most significant challenge to standard-setters as they consider how to address intellectual capital reporting.

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