New trends in intellectual capital reporting. Exploring online intellectual capital disclosure in Italian universities
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-09-2017-0119 |
| Pages | 814-835 |
| Date | 15 June 2018 |
| Published date | 15 June 2018 |
| Author | Francesca Manes Rossi,Giuseppe Nicolò,Paolo Tartaglia Polcini |
| Subject Matter | Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting,HR & organizational behaviour,Information & knowledge management |
New trends in intellectual
capital reporting
Exploring online intellectual capital
disclosure in Italian universities
Francesca Manes Rossi and Giuseppe Nicolò
Department of Management and Innovation Systems,
University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy, and
Paolo Tartaglia Polcini
University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore a new way to disclose intellectual capital (IC) in
universities through their websites. Going beyond traditional tools used for intellectual capital disclosure
(ICD), this study aims at identifying possible determinants of ICD via the web.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper analyses the institutional websites of a sample of Italian
universities adapting the theoretical framework developed by Low et al. (2015) to the peculiarities of the
Italian university system. Moreover, the relationship between certain explanatory factors identified in
previous research and the extent of online ICD represented by two disclosure indexes was tested through an
ordinary least squares regression model.
Findings –The analysis reveals the extensive use of ICD via websites, especially regarding human and
internal capital, while the disclosure of external capital through this means is still limited. Internationality and
online visibility both positively affect the extent of a university’s ICD.
Research limitations/implications –The paper represents the first study investigating online ICD and its
determinants in universities, contributing new knowledge to help answer the how and what of the matter.
Practical implications –The results can serve as encouragement to university managers to enhance online
ICD to meet the information needs of a wider audience.
Originality/value –This is the first study to provide evidence about online ICD in universities and to reveal
some of the possible determinants to improve this disclosure.
Keywords Universities, Higher education, Intellectual capital, Disclosure, Internet reporting, Online disclosure
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In the modern “new knowledge economy”, intellectual capital (IC) is considered a key driver
for value creation both in private and public organisations (Lev, 2001; Bezhani, 2010; Siboni
et al., 2013; Low et al., 2015). Public organisations in particular are characterised by a “high
degree of intangibility”(Secundo et al., 2016), since their primary outputs are intangible
services, thus creating a strong need for intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) (Bezhani, 2010;
Ramírez Córcoles et al., 2016).
The economic, social and political changes that have occurred in recent years in public
sector universities (particularly the New Public Management (NPM), the Bologna Process
and the emergence of the “third mission”) call for greater strategic and organisational
autonomy, especially with regard to the budget allocation process, entrepreneurship and
activities related to the third mission (Bezhani, 2010; Parker, 2011; Siboni et al., 2013;
Ramírez Córcoles et al., 2016).
Since universities are knowledge-intensive organisations in which the development of
intangible resources is pivotal, these changes require the development of new measurement
and reporting models that include IC. There is a growing claim for a wider disclosure
of value created by universities to support fundraising activities, to ensure accountability
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 19 No. 4, 2018
pp. 814-835
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-09-2017-0119
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
814
JIC
19,4
in the use of public funds and the outcomes of research and teaching, as well as
close relationships with industries and territories (Bezhani, 2010; Siboni et al., 2013;
Ramírez Córcoles et al., 2016).
Nonetheless, research on IC in universities is still quite limited (Dumay et al., 2015), and
what does exist has mostly consisted of analyses of annual reports as the primary data
source, given their free availability and widespread use by previous researchers (Dumay,
2014; Dumay and Cai, 2015; Dumay and Guthrie, 2017).
Indeed, in recent years, several scholars (Abeysekera, 2006; Dumay and Tull, 2007;
Dumay and Cai, 2014; Dumay, 2016; Dumay and Guthrie, 2017) have emphasised the
limitations of annual reports as a means of ICD, because they are not designed to provide
IC information but are essentially backward looking and subject to manipulations that can
make them unreliable.
There is, thus, a need to go beyond traditional reporting tools by exploring if different
data sources may provide stakeholders with more information on IC (Edvinsson, 2013;
Dumay, 2016; Cuozzo et al., 2017). In this vein, some scholars have begun to investigate
websites (Cormier et al., 2009; Lardo et al., 2017; Pisano et al., 2017) with the awareness of
their potential for organisations to improve their relationships with their stakeholders
(Pisano et al., 2017). In particular, Dumay (2016, p. 179), emphasising the role of web-based
disclosure of IC in the private sector context, stated that it is “dynamic”and “followed”.
Similar investigation could be extended to public organisations devoted to research and
teaching, as universities, to detect how web-based disclosure may improve ICD.
Scholars highlight several other advantages of online disclosure in the public sector:
better accessibility, greater transparency and accountability towards stakeholders, lowered
costs and a timelier dissemination of information (Meijer, 2007; Gandía and Archidona, 2008;
Serrano-Cinca et al., 2009; Gallego-Alvarez et al., 2011).
In order to improve the extent of research on IC reporting in universities and overcome
the limitations of ICD studies based on annual reports, this study explores a new way of
disclosing IC—university websites—and thus contributes new IC knowledge in the public
sector (Guthrie, 2014; Dumay and Cai, 2015; Dumay, 2016; Cuozzo et al., 2017).
This study focusses on the websites of a sample of Italian universities and pursues the
following two objectives:
(1) To investigate the extent of online ICD in Italian universities through a content
analysis of institutional websites, based on the theoretical framework already
developed in university context by Low et al. (2015), adapted to the peculiarities of
the Italian university system and, at the same time, to analyse the way in which IC
information is conveyed by examining the structure of websites in terms of
accessibility and usability.
(2) To test the relationship between some explanatory factors identified in previous
research and the extent of online ICD as represented by two disclosure indexes—the
first comprising only IC items and the second also comprising features related to the
websites’accessibility.
To this end, the paper has been structured as follows: the next section presents the
results of previous research on ICD in universities, and Section 3 clarifies the research
questions and states the hypotheses tested. Section 4 describes the research
methodology and the method of data collection. The results are discussed in Section 5,
and the last section outlines the conclusions, highlighting both limitations as well as the
value of this research.
This paper makes an innovative contribution to the existing literature, being to the best
of our knowledge the first study that explores a new data source (websites) to investigate
ICD in universities, providing empirical evidence of the explanatory factors influencing the
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New trends in
intellectual
capital
reporting
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