Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify a measure of intellectual capital (IC) value which offers new research opportunities for empirical investigations and to examine the determinants of IC value. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 4,488 firm years of German companies are investigated to compare three measures of IC value: market-to-book, Tobin’s q, and long-run value-to-book (LRVTB). Findings – LRVTB is observed to be the IC value measure with the highest explanatory value. This measure provides an approach to empirically test previously untested hypotheses on IC value. The results on testing determinants of IC value indicate that IC value is positively related to leverage and motivational payments to employees and negatively associated with company size. In contrast, recognised intangible assets, research and development (R & D), company age and concentrated ownership show no significant effects. Research limitations/implications – The findings on IC value measures contribute to IC research as they offer a way to estimate IC value for testing IC-related hypotheses. The findings on IC determinants have implications for IC management as the relevant determinants can be considered for IC value creation. Originality/value – This paper responds to the challenge posed by previous IC research to develop more creative quantitative approaches to estimate IC value (Marr et al., 2003; Mouritsen, 2006) in order to test IC-related hypotheses by innovatively applying a measure from mergers and acquisitions research to IC.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to respond to the call by Dumay and Cai (2014) for new ideas to enhance intellectual capital (IC) research. One possibility is to draw conclusions on comparability across the results of prior studies. This study investigates whether the results of prior IC content analyses are comparable despite differences in their IC research frameworks. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis of 428 German management reports is conducted, capturing the IC reporting scores for individual IC items to investigate the role of certain widely used IC items. The relationships of IC scores for different combinations of widely used IC items are further examined in a correlation analysis to indicate comparability of prior results. Findings – The findings show that widely used IC items capture the majority of IC reporting and that the IC scores for different combinations of these IC items are highly correlated. These findings indicate that the results of prior IC content analyses are comparable as long as most of the widely used IC items are included in prior IC research frameworks. Research limitations/implications – The study contributes to IC reporting research as it shows that conclusions can be drawn across prior studies in meta-analyses because the results of prior studies are comparable in rankings and key findings. Originality/value – Although content analyses of IC reporting have been previously criticised, this study seminally questions the comparability of the results of prior studies due to differences in the IC research frameworks.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships of company characteristics to intellectual capital (IC) reporting in a mandatory management report. Based on the relevant regulation in Germany, IC components of the mandatory management report can be characterised as being partially required, partially recommended and partially voluntary. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis of 428 group management reports of listed German companies was conducted for required, recommended and voluntary IC reporting. To investigate the relationship of certain company characteristics to IC reporting, this study conducted a regression analysis considering company returns, size and industry. Findings – The findings show that structural capital dominates total IC reporting in Germany. This observation is in contrast to prior literature, in which relational capital has been found to be most frequently reported. However within the sub-group of voluntary IC reporting in German companies, relational capital has the highest proportion. The regression results show that company returns show no effect on IC reporting, but size and industry group are significantly related to IC reporting. Research limitations/implications – The findings indicate that IC reporting requirements and the relatively stringent German regulatory recommendations influence corporate IC reporting behaviour. The findings provide a basis for further discussion by standard setters regarding the extent to which requirements and recommendations on individual IC components seem to encourage IC reporting. Originality/value – This study utilises the unique research setting in Germany with a mandated management report to distinguish between required, recommended and voluntary IC reporting.

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