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The paper seeks to investigate the key drivers and level of voluntary disclosures in biotechnology company annual reports.

The paper uses an intellectual capital disclosure index score of voluntary disclosures in a large sample of listed biotechnology companies, and tests the relationship between voluntary disclosures of intangible firm value with traditional agency theory variables. The relationships are tested statistically using correlation and multiple‐regression analysis.

The key drivers of voluntary intellectual capital disclosures were the level of board independence, firm age, level of leverage and firm size. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that board independence, leverage and size had a significant relationship with the level of voluntary intellectual capital disclosure. Separate regression controlling for large‐sized and small‐sized firms demonstrated that voluntary intellectual capital disclosure was only driven by board independence and the levels of firm leverage in large firms. Small firms did not demonstrate this relationship.

The implications of this research are that smaller biotechnology companies' managers are not motivated by external debt‐holder demands to make voluntary disclosures about intangible firm value. In addition, large biotechnology companies, which are better able to establish independent board oversight, appear more effective at driving voluntary intellectual capital disclosures, perhaps in response to greater demand by owners. A limitation of this study is its Australian context and that data is analysed only from 2005 financial year annual reports.

To the authors' knowledge this is an original paper whose findings have valuable implications for managing intellectual capital at the firm level. The paper clearly demonstrates that disclosures about intangible firm value is being driven by traditional agency theory variables and more contemporary corporate governance issues, and that small firms may be ignoring the importance of disclosing more about their intellectual capital.

This paper aims to address the need to modify the existing intellectual capital (IC) disclosure frameworks and examines the disclosure practices of Indian knowledge-based companies by using a comprehensive IC disclosure index that has been developed in this study.

The annual reports of 30 listed knowledge-intensive companies from two sectors – pharmaceutical sector and engineering sector – have been analysed for a period of five years from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015. Additionally, the sample firms were ranked on the basis of market capitalisation (MC) to examine the IC reporting practice of firms with high and low MC. An IC disclosure index has been developed through comparative analysis of the frameworks used in three studies that is based on Bukh et al.’s (2001) classification. Further, the study has also considered intangibles and the related non-financial indicators of MERITUM guidelines. The disclosure index consists of a total of 69 items encompassing six components.

The overall IC disclosure trend showed an increase in reporting practice over the five-year study period. With respect to the components, process capital is found to be the most disclosed component while relational capital is the least disclosed component. After categorisation of firms into high and low MC, it has been observed that the IC disclosure scores of firms with high MC are significantly higher than firms with low MC.

This paper has developed an IC disclosure index through careful analysis and scrutiny of the existing frameworks which contributes to the existing literature. Likewise, the use of a comprehensive framework can aid the investors to know the true value of the firm and make proper market decisions.

This is the first paper in the Indian context in which a modified IC disclosure index is framed based on Bukh et al. (2001) framework for examining IC reporting practices.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate business model (BM) disclosure. As the BM shows how a company creates and captures value, its communication in the Annual Report is considered a necessary background for a dynamic analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of the intellectual capital (IC) contribution to a company’s competitive advantage.

Focusing on a sample of listed UK companies operating in high-technology industries, this paper runs a content analysis of BM disclosure presented in the Strategic Report (SR). To develop the analysis, it refers to an ontological approach that encompasses the main research contributions to this topic.

The analysis of SRs revealed that few companies use their BM disclosure to highlight the contribution of their IC to create and capture value. BM descriptions are not always clearly distinguishable from other strategic concepts and poorly illustrate the interactions among the BM components, which help understand how IC is entangled in a company’s value creation process.

This paper answers the Financial Reporting Council’s call for comments about its Guidance on SR. More in general, it contributes to the issue of the regulation of narrative information in the Annual Report.

This paper proposes a methodological framework for the analysis of BM disclosure quality. Thanks to this framework, it points out some critical issues of BM disclosure and offers some hints useful for its regulation.

Intangibles are becoming increasingly important to the scientific community as well as the business world. This is mainly due to a highly competitive business environment combined with exceptionally limited resources and the growing importance of knowledge as a commodity. The fluctuating differences between market and book values of companies indicate the extent of the intangibles' rising importance. By focusing on major publications since 1997, this paper critically analyzes current trends and differing views in this field. The publications are analyzed according to their content and methodologies. Review of the literature clearly shows that most publications in this area still lack a theoretical foundation. A large number of differing terms and definitions are present. Much of the literature analyzed here also fails to provide detailed suggestions for the management of intangibles, be they theory‐based or empirically‐derived. Discussion of these issues generally remains on a very abstract level. Research on intangibles is characterized by a large variety of views and interpretations – dominant schools of thought have yet to develop. This situation offers much opportunity for further research in this important field of management.

The purpose of this paper is to give an indication of the quantity of intellectual capital information in Japanese initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses from all stock exchange listings on the Japan Stock Exchange from 2003.

The paper applied a disclosure index consisting of 78 items to quantify the amount of information regarding intellectual capital included in the IPO prospectuses of Japanese companies. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test, controlling for technological type of the company (high‐tech/low‐tech), and whether the extent of managerial ownership prior to the IPO, company age and company size influenced disclosure.

From the analyses conclusions are derived for four hypotheses. The hypotheses “industry differences” (H1), “managerial ownership” (H2) and “company size” (H3) were found not to be significant factors explaining voluntary disclosure of information. The fourth factor, “company age” (H4), did, however, have a significant influence on the extent of disclosure for Japanese companies. Further testing of the Japanese companies regarding age showed a continuing trend.

Although Japan has been strongly associated with the concept of the knowledge society, Japanese studies regarding intellectual capital have been very scarce. No studies, to the best of one's knowledge, have examined the specific disclosure of intellectual capital information included in Japanese IPO prospectuses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect impact of firm-specific characteristics on the level of underpricing among Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs).

Content analysis of IPO prospectuses was used for 331 firms underwent listing between 2002 and 2008. The extent of disclosure was computed by applying the disclosure index of Bukh et al. (2005).

Of the five firm characteristics examined, there is a direct relationship between the firm’s financial performance and the level of foreign activity, and the level of underpricing, instead of being mediated through disclosure. However, some firm characteristics have direct influence on the extent of disclosure but do not have any influence on underpricing.

This empirical study concentrates on the Malaysian IPOs on a single disclosure mechanism. Other disclosure items can be examined together with the intellectual capital disclosure items.

As the findings reveal that the extent of disclosure is relatively low in influencing the level of underpricing. Had the disclosure been higher, it may have some influence on underpricing. The accounting governance board need to regulate the disclosures of the intangible resources so that the level of underpricing can be minimized.

This study provides new insight for the examination of direct and indirect (through disclosure) association between firm-specific characteristics and underpricing. The findings shed some lights to the IPO issuers to enhance disclosure so that the cost of capital can be reduced.

The main purpose of this chapter is to investigate the association between intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) level and two potential explanatory determinants: industry type and company size.

Twenty-one annual reports of Romanian public companies represented the sample companies. For each company, an ICD index was constructed based on an intellectual capital (IC) framework composed of 33 IC items. The results obtained for ICD Index are then used for statistical testing: descriptive statistics, T test, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression analysis.

Industry type by its own does not seem to influence ICD level and company size by its own does not influence the IC disclosure. However, the combination of the two variables significantly combines together to predict ICD.

A specified list of IC items may not provide the whole picture of ICD practices. Future research could consider interviewing managers about their disclosure rationale. A larger sample could help to further improve the extrapolation of the results. Furthermore, this study challenges researchers to extend the area of analysis by considering the relation between ICD and other possible determinants. Last but not least, a longitudinal study could provide more insights.

The results obtained represent a basis for comparison with those obtained by other studies carried out in other developing countries. Furthermore, they can be used in meta-analysis.

This chapter is one of the first investigating ICD in the case of Romanian companies. Accordingly, our chapter contributes to the ICD literature by providing new empirical evidence on the determinants of ICD in a developing country context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between ownership concentration and human capital (HC) disclosure released via LinkedIn.

This study uses a quantitative methodology. The sample is composed of 150 European companies. Content analysis was used to examine HC disclosure via LinkedIn. Regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis.

The results indicate that ownership concentration negatively influences HC disclosure via LinkedIn, confirming that closely held firms have little motivation to voluntarily release information.

The main limitation of this study relates to the sample size. Furthermore, this study investigates only the quantity of HC disclosure; it does not consider the quality of this information.

The typical ownership structure of European firms generates a force that opposes the growing pressure for internationalization and global transparency. This important issue needs to be considered in investor decisions, HC management and reporting and in setting accounting standards. Moreover, the study points out that, despite the potential opportunities provided by LinkedIn to build and enforce relationships with their stakeholders, companies mainly use LinkedIn for recruitment purposes.

This study contributes to the literature on HC disclosure because it is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first study that exclusively examines HC disclosure by European companies via LinkedIn and because it develops a disclosure index that includes items concerning the stock of knowledge and capabilities of employees in addition to the practices in human resource management.