The impacts of intellectual capital and financial factors on the competitiveness of Spanish firms in food and beverage industry before and after the COVID crisis

This paper aims to explore the influence of intellectual capital and financial factors on firms' competitiveness in food and beverage industry with considering the impacts of the COVID crisis. The value added intellectual coefficient method is employed to measure intellectual capital with using the ordinary least squares as the regression model. The results show the positive effects of intellectual capital factors on profitability no matter whether it is in the COVID crisis. In addition, the positive effects of intellectual capital efficiency and human capital efficiency tend to increase in the COVID crisis. Intellectual capital factors are nonsignificant in the models for market share. Capital employed efficiency that represents the efficiency of physical and financial capital is significant in both the models for profitability and market share. Regarding financial factors, their impacts are clearly observed on both profitability and market share. Therefore, the findings suggest that: for the firms in food and beverage industry as typically low-technology manufacturing sectors, intellectual capital factors influence competitiveness from the perspective of profitability instead of market share, whereas physical and financial capital as well as financial factors impact on competitiveness from the angles of both profitability and market share. This paper contributes to the empirical studies of competitiveness from firm level and differentiates the impacts of intellectual capital factors and financial factors on the competitiveness of the firms in food and beverage industry as a stabilizer for economy during the recent COVID crisis.