EUROPEAN EVIDENCE ON INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL: LINKING METHODOLOGIES WITH FIRM DISCLOSURES

The aim of this research is to examine the degree to which different categories of intellectual capital are disclosed in the annual reports of a sample of large European companies. 1 The sample comprises 18 companies included in the STOXX (R) Europe TMI Software & Computer Services Index, from six countries. Keeping with the previous literature, the present study has analysed the disclosed items of intellectual capital outside the financial reports of these entities; this methodological choice assumes that disclosure outside the requirements of accounting standards shows the true commitment of managers in the creation and development of intellectual capital. Therefore, we have collected the cross-sectional raw data from the management review section of selected annual reports for one fiscal year. We have used relevant methodologies from the earlier literature for the content analysis of intellectual capital disclosures. The elements disclosed in narrative form were coded as binary variables on an index scale, and several frequencies and charts are included in the discussion section. Frequencies found are only poorly comparable with the results of previous studies.