If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical research study which took a novel examination of the relationship between risk and transparency with regards to a company's intellectual capital assets. The objective of this study is to evaluate how the systematic and idiosyncratic risk of publicly traded companies correlates with the degree of available information regarding their intellectual capital statements. Design/methodology/approach -Intellectual capital is measured within the framework of a rating system that includes 44 parameters within eight focus areas. These data were collected from key informants at eight publicly traded IT companies in Sweden. Findings -The results show a negative correlation between idiosyncratic risk and transparency and a positive correlation between market risk and transparency. However, the correlation between risk and transparency may partly be explained by organization size. Research limitations/implications -This study was based on a small set of firms within one country so generalizability is limited. Practical implications -The suggested methodology of intellectual capital measurement has since been used by over 400 organizations across four different continents. Originality/value -This methodology consists of both qualitatively metrics as well as quantitative metrics that are then triangulated together to test various hypotheses.