Accounting for intellectual capital: a comparative analysis
| Date | 10 April 2009 |
| Published date | 10 April 2009 |
| Pages | 68-79 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720910962452 |
| Author | Daniel Brännström,Marco Giuliani |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Accounting for intellectual capital:
a comparative analysis
Daniel Bra
¨nnstro
¨m
Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, and
Marco Giuliani
Department of Management, University of the Marche, Ancona, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to understand how many and what intangible assets firms from
two different contexts disclose in order to comprehend whether an accounting harmonization is
actually reached in practice and what are the eventual hurdles to surmount in order to reach it.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the purchase analyses
disclosed by the Swedish and Italian listed companies in their financial statements refering to the first
year of application of the IFRS3 is conducted.
Findings – The main findings are the following. First, firms do not disclose intangible assets in the
same way. Second, contracts become a useful tool to make it possible to account for IC. Third, the
disclosure of labels shows a variety. Fourth, differences in behavior are seen.
Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is that only a sample of firms (the listed
ones in the SSE and MTA/MTAX) that apply IFRS3 is investigated. The main implication is that the
disclosing of IC in financial statements is problematic and makes harmonization difficult to achieve.
The empirical deepening of these two conclusions represents opportunities for future researchers.
Originality/value – The research is an investigation of the first year of application of a new
accounting principle from an inter-country comparison considering it as an opportunity to disclose
more IC and consequently to contribute to the debate about how and what IC should be disclosed.
Keywords Intellectualcapital, Goodwill accounting, Intangibleassets
Paper type Research paper
1. The problem of IC disclosure and accounting harmonization
Accounting and accounts of the firms’ value creation have changed over the last
decades. Some argue that these changes in accounting are a response to the increasing
importance of intellectual capital (IC) (Green, 2007; Marr and Chatzkel, 2004; Petty and
Guthrie, 2000). Notwithstanding, IC has had a relevant impact in management control
but it is still problematic with reference to external reporting (Mouritsen, 2003;
Roslender and Fincham, 2004), even if it is widely accepted that it can affect the value
of a firm (Mitchell van der Zahn et al., 2007). If firms are not able to report on the issues
that management considers paramount in creating value, it generates complex
information asymmetry. In turn, the asymmetry issue creates challenges that
governments, regulators and researchers aim to reduce by promoting greater corporat e
IC disclosure in mandatory and voluntary statements (Kaufmann and Schneider, 2004).
The efforts to create a global accounting standard made by International Accounting
Standards Board (IASB) may be partly understood as an endeavor to react to this issue.
The inadequacy of the traditional financial accounting standards has been
highlighted by several authors. In way of examples, Lev and Zarowin (1999) argue for
the need to enlarge the boundaries of financial accounting in order for the economic
benefits generated by IC to be estimated with reliability, as is already done for the
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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VINE
39,1
68
VINE: The journal of information and
knowledge management systems
Vol. 39 No. 1, 2009
pp. 68-79
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0305-5728
DOI 10.1108/03055720910962452
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