The communication of intellectual capital: the “whys” and “whats”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify motivations that drive communication of IC (CIC); and second, to investigate content and format used in CIC from three perspectives, namely, human capital information, relational capital information and structural capital information...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of intellectual capital 2016-07, Vol.17 (3), p.414-438
Main Authors: Wee, Janet C.N, Chua, Alton Y.K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accounting
Annual reports
Banking
Banks
Communication
Content analysis
Corporate governance
Decision making
Design analysis
Disclosure
Employees
English language
Format
Human capital
Information & knowledge management
Intellectual capital
Intellectual property
Investigations
Knowledge management
Management
Management decisions
Motivation
Regulators
Statistical analysis
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify motivations that drive communication of IC (CIC); and second, to investigate content and format used in CIC from three perspectives, namely, human capital information, relational capital information and structural capital information. Design/methodology/approach – A global survey was conducted with 200 banks’ senior executives responsible for annual report (AR), followed by content analysis of each bank’s AR. Findings – The study found four motivations of CIC, namely, management responsibility to stakeholders, collective behavior, corporate responsibility and compliance. Content analysis of banks’ AR found structural capital information most prevalent, followed by human capital and relational capital. Five types of formats were analyzed to show the different presentation used in the CIC. Research limitations/implications – Current data source was limited to banking and focussed on English language publications. Practical implications – The study provides regulators insights to forces that either compel or hinder CIC, and updates literature on management’s thinking and priorities in CIC. Originality/value – This study is possibly the first paper that investigates the motivation of CIC for reporting, where IC is an important asset to organizations. The findings on the content and format used in CIC extend existing studies to a wider, global scale.
ISSN:1469-1930
1758-7468
DOI:10.1108/JIC-01-2016-0007