Intangibles disclosure in Management Commentary regulation in Germany and Italy

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand whether Management Commentary (MC) can cover the information needs about underreported company intangibles in accounting traditionalist countries such as Germany and Italy. Furthermore, this work would like to contribute towards an improvement of the managerial culture on intangible resources disclosure and to stimulate the consciousness of the need for a new regulatory policy in accounting. Design/methodology/approach – Focusing on the current regulation on MC and taking into account its hard and soft components, both in Italy and in Germany, we have carried out a semantic analysis together with a manual content one so to find out and to compare specifications for intangibles related disclosure in MC. The authors have decided to follow a semantic approach because of the different languages of the analysed documents, that in any case need to be considered under a cultural perspective of provenience, trying to give more effectiveness to the cross comparison. Findings – The results have shown that just a part of the intangibles is covered by the regulations of MC and that Germany and Italy follow, mainly, the same approach to MC. Practical implications – The findings highlight the similarities and differences between what the authors need to report on intangibles according to specifications in Italy and Germany. Originality/value – The authors reveal the approach that a country with rather conservative accounting can follow balancing regulatory approach and needs to disclose information about intangibles without a specific report on that. The authors identify the need for a new policy that can enable the development of intangibles disclosure culture.

When the investors speak: intellectual capital disclosure and the Web 2.0

“…Similarly, Archambault and Archambault (2003) outline that culture influences how managers organise companies and, therefore, affects corporate disclosure. Catalfo and Wulf (2016) reinforce the role of culture on ICD and state that for a long time there has been a lack of managerial awareness in the field of ICD. The characteristics of the information producer, such as nationality, corporate culture, managerial awareness, and culture are already established determinants of ICD in traditional communication channels and can, therefore, be extended to the Web 2.0.…”

Drivers for voluntary intellectual capital reporting based on agency theory

“…The unique research setting for IC reporting due to the German management reporting regulation has been identified in prior literature (Goebel, 2015a;Catalfo and Wulf, 2016). GAS 15 has been examined by Goebel (2015b) utilising the regulatory requirements for the management report to distinguish between required, recommended and voluntary IC reporting.…”

Review of Methods and Tools for Intellectual Property Analysis of Public Sector Entities

“…In the practice of content analysis, modification of search queries by adding and excluding various terms causes substantially varying results, thus, decreases the reliability of research and calls into question the key conclusions [9; 10]). P. Catalfo and I. Wulf combined content analysis tools with a semantic analysis to study disclosure of IP and intangible assets information in the 'management comments' to the reports prepared in accordance with IFRS and in the evaluation of its sufficiency to satisfy the concerned parties' informational needs [77]. F. Castilla-Polo and C. Ruiz-Rodriguez point out that often content analysis results form the information base for application of statistical methods in assessment of the assets and business value, efficiency and effectiveness analysis etc.…”