Purpose: to investigate the key drivers and level of voluntary disclosures in biotechnology company annual reports. Methodology/Approach: using an intellectual capital disclosure index score voluntary disclosures in a large sample of listed biotechnology companies, and test the relationship between voluntary disclosures of intangible firm value with traditional Agency Theory variables. The relationships were tested statistically using correlation and multipleregression analysis. Findings: 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. The small firms did not demonstrate this relationship. Research limitations/implications: 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, 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. Originality/value: To our knowledge this is an original paper whose findings have valuable implications for managing intellectual capital at the firm level. We clearly demonstrate that disclosures about intangible firm value is being driven by traditional Agency Theory Variables and more contemporary corporate governance issues, and that Drivers of Voluntary Intellectual Capital Disclosure in Listed Biotechnology Companies 1-Research Paper 3 small firms may be ignoring the importance of disclosing more about their intellectual capital.

Purpose -The purpose of this research project is to compare the nature and extent of voluntary intellectual capital disclosures (ICD) by UK and Australian biotechnology companies. The motivating research question was whether the nature and extent of voluntary ICD by preparers of financial report data in these countries reflected the relative maturity of the UK, compared to Australian industry. Design/methodology/approach -ICD was measured in annual reports and financial statements published on the company websites. A Danish disclosure index was used to evaluate voluntary disclosures by 156 companies about customers, employees, IT, strategy, R&D and processes (78-items scored for each company). Findings -A significant leverage effect was demonstrated in relation to the "nature" of ICD by UK and Australian biotechnology companies. Interestingly, mean customer ICD were higher in annual reports from high-leveraged compared to low-leveraged Australian firms. In contrast, UK firms showed higher mean R&D ICD for low-leveraged firms than high-leveraged firms. With regards to the "extent" of ICD measured, the study demonstrated a significant country effect. Research limitations/implications -Potential limitations or bias may exist from the use of the disclosure index: binary scoring of disclosure versus non-disclosure reduces the richness of data otherwise obtainable by limited case study or interviews; and data collection is limiting -narrative with managers actually preparing ICD is not possible. Practical implications -Australian company financial accountants and managers preparing and/or including ICD information could be in danger of underestimating the importance of information asymmetry existing with lenders. Originality/value -This finding contrasts the legitimate R&D focused ICD of low-leveraged UK firms; namely to attract stakeholder attention to their expanding intellectual property base, with the findings from Australian firms' with a relatively predictable and naïve customer focus.

Purpose -The first objective of this study is to examine the nature and extent of intellectual capital (IC) information Australian hospitals disclose to their stakeholders (patients, general public, healthcare professionals) via the internet. The second objective is to examine whether four hospital characteristics influence the disclosure of IC-related information. Design/methodology/approach -Analysis reported in this study is based on IC disclosures by 128 hospitals on their internet web sites. IC disclosure is measured using an 85-item research constructed index that covers six major sub-categories. Measurement of IC disclosure was conducted during a four month period in the last third of 2005. Findings -It is found that whilst the incidence rate of hospitals disclosing IC information is high, the extent of IC disclosure is relatively low. The quantity of IC disclosure varied significantly between different IC sub-categories. In addition, the paper investigates possible determinants of variations in IC disclosure by Australian hospitals. Specifically, it is found that the quantity of IC information disclosed on a hospital web site varied according to the state location, designation as a private or public hospital, whether the hospital is specialized or general in its operations, and if the hospital is based in a city or regional location. A hospital's designation as being network or non-networked is not a significant determinant. Originality/value -Few studies have examined the disclosure of IC information by healthcare providers such as hospitals. No studies, to the knowledge of the authors, have examined the specific disclosure of IC information by hospitals on their internet web sites.

Despite the growing devolution of budgetary responsibility in public sector organizations, little attention has been paid to the key notion of the controllability principle in this context. Drawing on neo‐institutional sociology, this paper explores the relationship between decentralization of decision‐making authority and reliance on the controllability principle (RCP) in the devolution of budgetary responsibility to the middle management level of a large Norwegian hospital. The results of a questionnaire survey only reveal a weak positive relationship between decentralization and RCP. Qualitative data are then used to probe further into the institutional factors impinging on this relationship, which have not been widely discussed in previous research. Our findings suggest that the possibilities of decentralization and thus enhancing managers’ control of major cost items, such as labour‐related expenses, are constrained by the actions of external as well as internal constituencies. RCP is also influenced by institutionally induced allocation practices, traditionally contributing to subjective, ex‐post adjustments of budgetary results but more recently manifested by the adoption of more objective allocations to demonstrate compliance with the cost containment ethos.

Coevolution shapes diversity within and among populations but is difficult to study directly.Time shift experiments, where individuals from one point in time are experimentally challenged against individuals from past, contemporary, and/or future time points, are a powerful tool to measure coevolution. This approach has proven useful in both directly measuring coevolutionary change and in distinguishing among coevolutionary models. However, these data are only as informative as the time window over which they were collected, and inference from shorter coevolutionary windows might conflict those from longer time periods. Previous time-shift experiments from natural microbial communities of horse chestnut tree leaves uncovered an apparent asymmetry, whereby bacterial hosts were more resistant to bacteriophages from all earlier points in the growing season while phages were most infective to hosts from only the recent past. Here we extend the time window over which these infectivity and resistance ranges are observed to across years and confirm that the previously observed asymmetry holds over longer timescales. These data suggest existing coevolutionary theory should be revised to include the possibility of differing models for hosts and their parasites, and examined for how such asymmetries might reshape the predicted outcomes of coevolution.