Corporate news disclosure on intangible assets during the COVID-19 crisis in pharmaceutical companies

Purpose: This study explores corporate news communication about intangible assets during the COVID-19 crisis in the largest global pharmaceutical companies. Methodology/approach: Computerised lexical content analysis was performed on 297 articles (texts) from 34 companies, amounting to 280,246 words. We generated a bottom-up clustering of the keywords, titles and abstracts. The qualitative data were obtained from the ProQuest textual database by Clarivate. Findings: The research demonstrates that the biggest global pharmaceutical companies focused intensively on intangible assets during the crisis. They disclosed information on three main intangibles: (1) brand, (2) patent and (3) license, covering 78.17% of the entire corpus text. Research limitations: The study limitations include the fact that the sample concerns only the biggest pharmaceutical companies that met our criteria. Further research could cover small and medium-sized companies and other industries. Finally, further analysis could combine quantitative and qualitative methods within the same research. Originality/value: The research article contributes to the current literature on intangible asset narratives, showing how the biggest pharmaceutical companies tend to achieve a competitive advantage, stay successful during a crisis and address messages to their key stakeholders. Considering the high risks and existing uncertainties, these messages could be of the utmost importance.