Proceedings

(external capital), “Competence” (human capital), “Partnership” (external capital) and
“Intellectual Property” (internal) were IC attributes with the highest frequency of
disclosure. Having the same objective, Wong and Gardner (2005) analyzed the annual
reports of 60 companies from New Zeeland and acknowledged that external capital is
the most IC category disclosed with 48%. Bozzolan et al. (2006) compared ICD
practices of 30 Italian firms and 30 UK firms and concluded that sample companies
from both countries voluntarily disclose a substantial amount of information about
their IC. With regard to the relative importance of the three categories of ICD, the
focus on external structure ranks highest (52.38% for Italian firms and 60.22% for UK
firms). Analysing 60 firms from Sweden, Denmark and UK, Vergauwen et al. (2007)
found that relational capital has the highest amount of disclosure (46%). Disclosures
of IC were analysed by Ax and Marton (2008) in order to study the association
between human capital disclosure and human capital management practices and
carried out a content analysis on 27 Swedish companies. Bruggen et al. (2009)
analyzed 125 listed Australian companies and found that structural capital is the most
frequently disclosed category (97.5%). Yau et al. (2009) examines the extent and
nature of voluntary intellectual capital (IC) disclosure by 60 public companies in
Malaysia and how the disclosure may be explained by the economics or other
rationale of corporate disclosure. Feleaga et al. (2010) analysis the annual report of 18
companies from 6 European countries and concluded that internal capital with 42% is
the most disclosed IC category, followed by external capital with 34% and employee
competence with 24%.
Even if most of the studies are carried out in the area of ICD, there are several ones
considering the factors that may determine companies to disclose IC. According to the
previous literature, the following factors have been tested so to confirm whether they
influence ICD: company size, industry type, information asymmetry, leverage,
ownership, company’s age, profitability, nationality, auditor type, listing status,
foreign activity. The empirical evidence has sometimes shown a clear positive
relationship (size; capital intensity; foreign listing; internationality; ownership
structure) and sometimes a mixed relationship (leverage, audit firm size, profitability)
with levels of ICD.
When trying to determine the extent of intellectual capital disclosure practices in the
case of a sample of 30 Swedish listed companies, Beaulieu et al. (2002) considered
the effect of three variables: size, profitability, and industry classification. The
empirical results indicate that only size is significantly associated with the disclosure
of intellectual capital items.
To provide some empirical insights to the factors that might explain the type and
amount of information disclosed about intangibles, Bozzolan et al. (2003) tested the
influence of size and industry on the extent and the content of ICDs. They found that
size and industry seemed to explain differences in IC reporting behaviour among
Italian companies. Extending the research in the field of ICD by considering a
comparison between Italian and UK firms, Bozzolan et al. (2006) considers more
variables that could possibly influence the level of IC disclosure that are to be: size,
industry type, leverage, ownership, profitability, and nationality. The results of the
study reveal a modest support for industry type influencing ICD and that firm size
influences ICD. Against expectations, the study finds no support for nationality
variable on ICD.
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