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To investigate, compare and document the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure to sustainability disclosure during a transition from a voluntary to mandated “comply or explain” sustainability reporting regime. And to empirically test if, during the regime transition period, changes in the magnitude (extent) of sustainability disclosure is a significant determinant of changes in the magnitude (extent) of intellectual capital disclosure.

Content analysis of 1,744 annual reports drawn from 436 Singapore listed firms spanning a four-year observation window (i.e. April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2018). The magnitude (number of sentences) and extent (number of items) of (1) intellectual capital disclosure measured using a 38-item index; (2) sustainability disclosure of a 105-item index; and (3) 15-item index to measure the magnitude and extent of joint sustainability/intellectual capital disclosure.

The average magnitude and extent of sustainability and the joint sustainability/intellectual capital disclosure increased whilst the average magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure increased when regulatory discussion of a change to mandated sustainability reporting emerged. However, in the annual period the mandated sustainability reporting became effective while the average magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure declined. Regression tests indicate a significant (insignificant) association between the change in the magnitude (extent) of sustainability disclosure and intellectual capital disclosure.

From a research perspective, the analysis implies researchers investigating the consequences of mandated sustainability disclosure should consider impact on alternative non-financial disclosure themes and develop theoretical frameworks to derive why and how management may shift non-financial reporting strategies and practices.

For regulators, findings suggest there may be a need to weigh spillover costs of reductions in transparency related to intellectual capital. For investors, declines in the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure following a transition to mandated sustainability reporting may limit future firm valuation particularly of heavy intangible asset-oriented firms.

Initial study empirically investigating the impact of the transition from a voluntary to mandated sustainability reporting regime on the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure.

The matter of interest is the reporting and disclosure of intellectual capital (IC) in the global “knowledge economy” era. The aim of the paper is twofold: to verify the level of disclosure of IC through the non-financial statements (NFSs) published by public companies and to identify the main firm-specific factors that explain the propensity to disclose.

Based on the 27 components of IC, a scoring system is designed to measure the level of disclosure of IC by 47 listed Italian companies. Content analysis (CA) is performed on the NFSs these companies published in 2020, to measure each company's so-called intellectual capital disclosure index (ICDI). A regression analysis is then applied to relate the ICDI scores to some firm-specific variables to determine their relevance and influence on the level of disclosure.

Although the NFS was not designed specifically for IC, the results of the analyses show an overall barely satisfactory ability of the NFS to give certain information on IC. Furthermore, the propensity to disclose IC appears significantly related to some firm characteristics considered here, such as capitalization, profitability, productivity, intangibility and financial structure.

The analysis relates to a representative but limited sample that does not allow for sectoral or time-series analyses. Extending the companies and years under observation would allow the results to be validated with broader and more in-depth analysis.

This paper provides exploratory but interesting evidence about the relationships between IC disclosure (ICD), firm characteristics and market capitalization. Despite several previous studies on the disclosure of IC, no analyses were found that focused on the information capacity of the NFS. Also, to the authors' knowledge, relatively few researchers have considered a set of financial ratios that include capital structure indices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the trend of intellectual capital disclosures (ICD) of Islamic banks under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) regimes over a seven-year period (2012–2018).

A self-developed checklist was developed to measure the extent of ICD practices of Islamic banks in both regimes.

The results revealed a moderate increase in ICD practices over the period of the study. However, there is no significant difference in ICD between the two financial reporting regimes i.e. IFRS and AAOIFI-based banks. In fact, most of the IFRS-based banks have better ICD than AAOIFI-based banks throughout the analysis period. This study contributed to the ICD literature by introducing Shariah capital as a new category of information to disclose besides the common disclosure on human capital, relational and structural related information by the Islamic banks.

It is important for Islamic banks to distinguish themselves from conventional banks and ICD can be a conduit to show their uniqueness. The introduction of Shariah capital in this study reflects the main objective of Islamic bank’s existence, and it should become an important element in ICD. In fact, some form of guidelines or policy by regulating agencies could facilitate the ICD by Islamic banks and reflect the truth about their ability to capitalize on Intellectual capital and disclose about these practices to their stakeholders.

The introduction of Shariah capital as a new component to the existing components (i.e. human capital, structural capital and relational capital) of intellectual capital brings a new perspective to the research on ICD of Islamic banks. This paper further contributes to the scarce evidence of ICD of Islamic banks globally.

With the emergence of the basis of intellectual capital, competitive advantage was considered as the focus of competitive strategies, and the knowledge resulting from this approach became the basis for the development and strategic directions of companies in various fields of the company such as finance and accounting. The purpose of this study is sustainable intellectual capital reporting framework and evaluation of key examples in the context of capital market companies.

The methodology of this study was exploratory from the point of view of the developmental result and based on the type of objective and qualitative and quantitative basis was used to collect the data. The statistical population in the qualitative part was university experts and in the quantitative part financial managers of capital market companies. Data collection tools were interviews in the qualitative part and fuzzy scales and language comparison checklists in the quantitative part. Therefore, first through three stages of coding, the dimensions of the model were identified, and based on the fuzzy Delphi analysis, the reliability level was determined through the average between the first round and the second round of Delphi. Finally, through the default tests, the appropriate fuzzy model was first determined, and then hierarchical fuzzy analysis based on TODIM's approach was used to determine the most favorable axis of sustainable intellectual capital reporting.

The results in the qualitative part indicate the existence of 3 categories and 6 components and 39 conceptual themes in the form of a six-dimensional model. In the quantitative part, the results showed that by confirming the dimensions identified through fuzzy Delphi analysis, the most desirable axis of intellectual capital reporting is the component of technological capital reporting, which can play a more effective role in sustainable reporting.

This study, relying on the importance of the consequences of sustainable intellectual capital reporting, tries to evaluate the consequences of this field of financial reporting due to the lack of a coherent theoretical framework about capital market companies. In addition, the framework presented in this study promotes integrated thinking for firms to it would provide some level of incentive to those charged with governance concerning the voluntary compliance with the sustainable intellectual capital reporting framework.

This study examines the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of Oman's financial sector companies.

The study uses a sample of 150 firm-year observations of listed financial sector companies in the Muscat Securities Market, Oman, from 2014 to 2018. Flesch Reading ease and Flesch Kinkaid Index are used as proxies for annual report readability. As part of sensitivity analysis, the study also uses the natural logarithm of annual report pages as alternative readability measures. The investigation is conducted using random effects regression analysis and supported with system GMM estimation for robustness.

The findings of this study demonstrate a decrease in intellectual capital efficiency associated with better readability of annual reports for the financial sector firms. Alternatively, banks report a positive association of intellectual capital efficiency with the Flesch Reading ease score of the annual report. The structural capital and capital employed efficiency are also found to be negatively associated with annual report readability. Corporate governance mechanisms such as dispersed ownership and audit committee size also result in easy-to-read annual reports that support agency theory.

The research was conducted for financial firms of Oman, and thereby the findings can be generalized to the financial sector of countries with similar settings, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

The policy implications arising from this study suggest a strengthening of the intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms to improve the readability of the firms and thereby increase investor confidence.

This paper's uniqueness is in the model used to investigate the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of an emerging market.

This study aims to investigate the moderating effects of the Shariah committee (SC) on the extent of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) of Islamic banks.

This study provides evidence from an analysis of a sample of Islamic banks in multiple countries over a seven-year period (2012–2018). The extent of intellectual capital information was measured and regressed against several corporate governance attributes covering board and audit committee characteristics, gender diversity of SC members and moderating variables of the SC, while controlling for firm-specific variables. A checklist was developed to measure the extent of the ICD of Islamic banks on a rubric scale ranging from 0 to 3.

The results show that the size and gender diversity among SC significantly influence the ICD practices of Islamic banks. Apart from contributing to the literature, this study may serve as valuable input for Islamic banking practitioners including regulators and standard setters to empower women and use all their potential for better intellectual capital output.

The paper highlights two main implications. Firstly, the regulator should look at the size and composition of the SC to enable a conducive environment for sound deliberation of Shariah matters. Secondly, the gender diversity among SC should be considered because women and man may have different approaches, and the best optimal combination of resources could enhance Islamic banks’ competitive advantage.

This study highlights the importance of gender diversity and size of SC in influencing the disclosure practices related to Shariah matters by the Islamic banks.

The aim of this study is to analyse the factors that contribute to the disclosure of relational liabilities (RLs) of the US companies.

The study uses content analysis to examine the disclosure of RLs in annual reports of the US companies listed on the Nasdaq-100 index from 2013 to 2015.

The study finds a positive correlation between the disclosure of RLs and gender diversity of the board of directors as well as the education level of the CEO. By contrast, the disclosure of RLs is negatively associated with the age of the CEO. Companies in knowledge-intensive industries also tend to disclose more information about their RLs than those in other industries.

This study focuses on the determinants of RLs, whereas previous research has mainly examined the positive impact of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital on financial performance. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the factors that influence the disclosure of RLs.

Corporate disclosures are essential because they provide transparent and accurate information about a company's financial health, performance, risks and governance practices. They enable investors to make informed decisions, promote market efficiency and maintain trust in the financial system. This paper uses bibliometrics to identify the intellectual composition of the literature on corporate disclosure.

Based on the bibliometric information of 4,551 articles on corporate disclosure research, the authors conducted citation, keyword co-occurrence, bibliographic coupling and publication analyses to elucidate the leading articles, authors, sources, institutions, countries, themes and topics in the field of corporate disclosure from the 1960s to 2021.

The findings of this review demonstrate that corporate disclosure research is based on four broad themes – the role of disclosure in capital markets, non-financial disclosure, determinants of corporate disclosure and firm risk and intellectual capital disclosure. This review suggests that management should pay attention to the financial and non-financial corporate information that investors, regulators and the government emphasise.

This paper is the first comprehensive bibliometric review on corporate disclosure. It summarises the regulatory shifts, technological changes and industry trends that have influenced corporate disclosure research. Besides identifying broad research themes, the authors performed bibliographic coupling for research on disclosure sources, including annual reports, management forecasts, earnings calls, press releases, the Internet and social media, to reveal the thematic clusters related to these sources.

Chinese-listed firms with Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) play a crucial role in advancing the outward investment policy of China. Board diversity can be vital, and intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) showing future earnings can build investor confidence in these firms. This study examines these two relationships in Chinese-listed firms with BRI projects during a predictable business outlook period (2019, pre-Covid period) and unpredictable business outlook period (2020, Covid period).

The study used least squares regression that analysed the target population comprising 79 listed Chinese firms with BRI projects in 2019 and 2020. The China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database provided board diversity data. Analysing annual reports using content analysis provided the ICD data, collected by following an established intellectual capital (IC) coding framework in the literature. After collecting board-related data, the study calculated the diversity between boards in firms (diversity of boards – DOB) using cluster analysis. The study estimated the diversity within each board (diversity in boards – DIB) using Blau's Index.

The findings indicate that in the predictable business outlook environment, DOB positively associates with ICD, and DIB negatively associates with ICD. In the unpredictable business outlook environment, the DIB and DOB interaction negatively associates with ICD, and DOB positively associates with ICD.

The findings apply to Chinese-listed firms with BRI projects and further research is required to generalise findings beyond them. This study used annual reports to collect ICD, but a future study could examine BRI firms' social media and website disclosures. The attributes selected for board diversity dimensions can contribute to bounded findings, and future studies could expand the board diversity attributes included.

The findings provide insights into firms' board composition and structure associated with ICD.

This is one of the first studies providing empirical evidence about board diversity and ICD of Chinese-listed firms with BRI projects.

This study aims to add empirical evidence to the intellectual capital (IC) literature by enhancing understanding of voluntary online IC disclosure (ICD) practices in knowledge-based institutions such as universities from an international standpoint. The ultimate purpose of this study is to examine how different variables related to size, internet visibility and certain corporate governance attributes (i.e. board size and board gender diversity) affect the extent to which universities from different world’s countries convey ICD through websites.

This study investigates a sample of 100 international universities selected according to the QS World University Rankings 2020 to examine the level of ICD provided through their official websites. It uses a content analysis to measure the actual amount of IC information disclosed by these universities and a regression model to test the impact of the explanatory variables.

Empirical results demonstrate a negative impact of the board size and a positive effect of board gender diversity and internet visibility on the level of IC information disclosed by international universities on their website. They also demonstrate a non-significant effect of university size.

This study contributes to enriching the academic literature in different ways. In the first place, it extends the field of application of the stakeholder theory. In the second place, this study sheds light on the actual ICD level of international universities. In the third place, it examines the ICD through a channel – websites – which are still little explored by the academic literature. Finally, this study increases knowledge about the factors that can influence the ICD disclosure of international universities.