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This research examines the likelihood that Panamanian and Colombian banks listed on their respective stock exchanges voluntarily disclose intangible liabilities based on such variables as their size, profitability, indebtedness, age and growth. The presented findings concur with agency theory, signalling theory and the owner-cost theory.

The authors propose a probabilistic model to test the influence of size, profitability, indebtedness, age and growth on the disclosure of intangible liabilities. The dependent variable, the disclosure index, was constructed from a dichotomous approach using Harvey and Lusch's (1999) model, which has 24 characteristics, plus six that we added in our research. These were grouped into four categories: procedures, human activity, information and organisational structure.

Banks in Panama and Colombia with a larger size, higher profitability, lower age and higher growth are more likely to disclose more information about their intangible liabilities. However, indebtedness does not serve as a determinant of the disclosure of these liabilities, even though its relationship is negative.

The limitation of the research was the voluntary disclosure of information about these liabilities on firms' websites.

The contributions of this research are as follows. First, we used an intangible asset disclosure methodology to verify the disclosure of intangible liabilities, in line with Harvey and Lusch's model, as well as providing another six indicators, thereby producing an extended model. Second, being the first empirical research to study the disclosure of intangible liabilities in Panama and Colombia opens a door to future research on this topic.

This research provides a significant practical contribution to society because banks listed on public stock markets, understanding that undisclosed intangible liabilities lead to opportunity costs in their profitability, might tend to disclose more information, thus promoting greater transparency in the market.

The main contribution of this research is applying an intangible asset disclosure methodology to the disclosure of intangible liabilities, following Harvey and Lusch's (1999) model, as well as the creation of an expanded model.

Most models of intellectual capital measurment equal intellectual capital with intellectual assets. Nevertheless, companies sometimes must incur liabilities to make intellectual assets truly actionable. This fact suggests the existence of intangible liabilities. The aim of this paper is to refine the methods of assessment of intellectual capital by refining and extending the concept of intangible liabilities.

The paper consists of a literature review of prior conceptualisations of intangible liabilities, and an empirical exploration of the employer‐employee relationships that can originate intangible liabilities.

The results of the empirical research show that a non‐fulfilment of perceived obligations by the company might cause organisational members to refrain from deploying their organisational knowledge in organisational processes. Thus, these obligations can be conceptualised as intangible liabilities.

The research has only explored intangible liabilities related to organisational members. Future research should explore the intangible liabilities that an organisation can incur with other constituencies, e.g. suppliers and clients.

Managers can improve their models of intellectual capital measurement taking into account not only the intangible assets, but also the intangible liabilities. Taking into account intangible liabilities should bring awareness of the conditions that might hinder the deployment of organisational knowledge.

The study brings a more refined, theoretically‐ and empirically‐based conceptualisation of intangible liabilities than those provided so far, aiding to develop a more robust theory of intellectual capital measurement.

There is an absence of research addressing the process by which emotional (also called sensational) assets and liabilities interact with the intellectual and accounting assets and liabilities of a firm. This conceptual paper discusses the relationship between these types of assets and liabilities, and examines the way in which emotional assets and liabilities (emotional capital) influence the fair value, profits and cash flow of a firm. It outlines how the core emotions related to products and services can influence customers in making purchasing decisions that maximise the value of a firm. It also offers indicators for the managing and reporting of emotional assets and reviews several theories that attempt to explain the relationship between the emotional assets and liabilities and value of a firm.

The aim of this paper is to help to address the need for empirical investigations on intellectual capital and intellectual liabilities “in action” and their consequences in terms of value creation and value destruction. In light of this consideration, this study aims to investigate if and how intellectual capital and intellectual liabilities influence the value creation and destruction processes, that is, if intellectual liabilities “in action” simply mirror intellectual capital dynamics or if they present some specificities.

A multiple case study method is adopted in order to understand intellectual capital and intellectual liabilities “in action”.

This study highlights the relevance of intellectual liabilities within the intellectual capital discourse. In particular, it shows that intellectual capital and intellectual liabilities affect the value creation process in different ways. Moreover, it emerges that intellectual liabilities tend to be left out of managerial discussions. Stemming from this, the idea of intellectual equity is proposed and conceived as the logical difference between intellectual capital and intellectual liabilities.

The main limitations of this study are twofold. The first is related to the methodology adopted and in particular to the qualitative mapping process developed. The second is the fact that the constructs to analyse were not indicated by the firms but by the author in order to make the results comparable.

This study contributes to the development of the literature on “intellectual capital in action” and “intellectual capital in practice” bringing in the idea of intellectual liabilities and the consideration that intellectual capital can create, but also destroy, value. Moreover, it highlights the need to monitor and manage intellectual liabilities in order to control the negative effects generated by intellectual capital. Therefore, this analysis has both theoretical and practical implications.

In comparison to the extant literature mentioned, this study does not analyse IC only in terms of value creation, but also in terms of value destruction. Moreover, instead of proposing and developing new concepts, methods and tools, this research investigates intellectual liabilities “in action”. In addition, this work jointly considers value creation and value destruction processes.

This paper helps to address the need for investigations on intellectual liabilities (ILs). In light of these considerations, the purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the extant literature on ILs in order to offer a solid base for improving the intellectual capital (IC) research agenda.

This study proposes a descriptive review. Refereed published studies and seminal works were analysed and then systematised.

This study shows that ILs tend to be overlooked in the IC discourse and identifies two main conceptions of ILs and the related measurement methods and tools. Furthermore, this study underlines the need to focus not only on what ILs are, but also on what ILs do. Finally, it supports the idea of adopting a holistic approach that considers both the positive (related to resources) and the negative (referred to liabilities) sides of IC.

The inability to cover all the literature that directly or indirectly deals with ILs is the main limitation of this paper. Time restrictions, language constraints and imperfect information narrow the coverage. Nevertheless, the adopted research methodology has allowed the authors to collect the main contributions in this field, in order to offer a concise, but complete picture of the studies on ILs.

This paper can be of help to those interested in analysing ILs, as it aims to systematise and offer a concise overview of the current literature in this field, which should be of use to both researchers and practitioners. Moreover, it offers some reflections on the topic and identifies possible research paths useful to developing future studies of theoretical and practical relevance.

This review differs from the previous ones dedicated to the IC discourse in two main ways: first, it does not focus on the whole of IC or on parts of it but on a specific topic, such as ILs, usually left out of the analyses and never adequately considered in previous literature reviews; second, it includes the publications on IC from 1999 to date and some unpublished works, in order to have both seminal and more consolidated studies.

Why should a firm expand across national frontiers? The costs of operating under different tax systems, coping with different cultural traditions and dealing with multiple bureaucracies are substantial. A new view of international economics called the internalization theory proposes that successful multinationals possess special intangible assets such as a technological lead, a marketing advantage or perhaps superior organizational ability. Our work indicates not only that this is so, but that in the absence of such intangibles a multinational structure may well be a liability. The traditional reasons economists and business managers cite to justify foreign acquisitions (such as the ability to declare profits where the tax rate is lowest, the increased stability gained through international diversification, and the lower labor and raw material costs prevailing in some foreign countries) appear to be minor effects.

From the supplier firm's perspective, a referral is a recommendation from A (the referrer) to B (the potential customer) that B should, or should not, purchase from C (the supplier firm). Thus, as referrals are for a specific supplier firm, they should be viewed as part of the supplier firm's marketing and sales activities. We recognize three types of referrals – customer-to-potential customer referrals, horizontal referrals, and supplier-initiated referrals – that have critical roles in a potential customer's purchase decision. We develop the concept of referral equity to capture the net effect of all referrals for a supplier firm in the market. We argue that supplier firms should view referral equity as a resource that has financial value to the firm as it affects the firm's cash flows and profits. We offer strategies firms can use to manage referrals and build their referral equity and suggest a research agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the feasibility of market based estimations of the value of human capital in firms.

The concept of intangible assets and market‐based valuation of human capital is presented. Cases of extreme estimates of human capital values are presented. The possibility of extremely low or even negative human capital values is examined.

It is demonstrated that odd human capital values can be explained by referring to principles of valuating fixed assets and intangible liability.

The paper demonstrates that market‐based methods for estimating the value of human capital of the firm can be feasible despite the existence of very odd human capital values.

The findings of the paper adds to the discussion of how to valuate human capital in intellectual capital accounts in general and human capital accounts in particular.

Focusing on managerial problems related to the measurement of intangibles, this paper develops and validates a hedonic-pricing methodology for the evaluation of the intangible resources of companies obtaining their shadow prices.

The paper adapts a hedonic-pricing methodology developed primarily for markets in real estate and secondhand cars to define how much intangibles may contribute to companies' market value. A certain calibration of the original tool has been developed to make this methodology appropriate for interpretation and practical use. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows for an evaluation of the shadow prices of intangible resources. These prices can be interpreted as the market value of the intangible resources which are not reflected on the balance sheet.

The results of this study demonstrate that hedonic pricing with a self-selection correction generates robust estimates. As one can see, the positive contribution of a high endowment of intangibles for all shadow prices is confirmed through estimations using two different techniques. Meanwhile, the negative effect of a low endowment is even more evident for the baseline model. This model shows consistent negative shadow prices for the majority of underinvested intangibles. Brands have the highest shadow prices in the introduced models; human capital, as measured by the qualification of top management and investments in employees, has likewise demonstrated high prices. However, most structural resources seem to be not reflected to a large degree in companies' market value.

This paper brings new opportunities to obtain the monetary value of intangible resources based on estimated market prices of a corporation's resource portfolio. These prices may be used for several purposes – for example, benchmarking for performance management, capital budgeting or knowledge-management practices. Moreover, by having methodological value, this study opens ways to evaluate any other intangibles which are not explicitly discussed in the empirical test of this particular study.

This study primarily contributes to the methodological advancement of evaluation of corporate intangible resources. It departs from the conventional hedonic-pricing mechanism to identify cogent estimates to intangibles in monetary terms. Importantly, this mechanism implies individual shadow prices for specific intangible resources which makes the contribution of this study unique for the existing literature, both within resource-based and value-based views.

Following the issuance of International Financial Reporting Standard 13 on fair value measurement (which became operational from January 2013), this study aims to investigate post-implementation challenges in the audit of fair value measurement and accounting estimates in the Nigerian context.

Data-collection was through a structured-questionnaire administered on 400 auditors from diverse backgrounds in terms of audit firm size, international affiliation and global presence.

Empirical data obtained from 277 auditors were analysed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, one-way ANOVA, cluster analysis, independent sample t-test and one-way multivariate analysis of co-variance. It was observed that the two highest-ranking and most-prevalent challenges of auditing fair value measurement and accounting estimates are the tendency for managers to manipulate earnings owing to the inability of auditor to effectively test fair value estimates; and the difficulty in testing unobservable inputs due to the application of assumptions and judgement in arriving at estimates by preparers of financial reports.

While there is no significant difference in the perception of auditors on the audit challenges associated with fair value measurement and accounting estimates, there is a significant difference in the magnitude of audit challenges faced in verifying fair value measurements and accounting estimates across industry sectors. Concerned stakeholders (including but not limited to accounting regulators, auditing standard setters, audit firms, researchers) are importuned to come up with robust and pragmatic measures to curtain these challenges, as the inability of auditors to rigorously verify fair value estimates may jeopardize the very essence of fair value measurement which is to elevate financial reporting quality.