Online disclosure of Intellectual Capital: an analysis of the Iberian Banks

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Lurdes
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Rodrigues, Ana Maria, Muñoz Dueñas, Pilar
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/1374
• topic: Disclosure; Intellectual Capital; Banks; Portugal; Spain

Abstract Purpose: Study the practices of online disclosure of intellectual capital of the eighty-six banks operating in Portugal and Spain in 2016. More specifically we sought to analyse the extent of the disclosure of information about intellectual capital, and of each of its’ components, through the institutional webpages of the banks operating in these two countries. Design/methodology/approach: Based upon an empirical-positivistic methodology, and resorting to the content analysis of the webpages through the application of an innovative index of disclosure based on the European models Intellectus and InCas, built specifically to analyze the disclosure of intellectual capital in the banking sector, we studied the disclosure of intellectual capital, this sector being knowledge intensive and focus of attention of various stake-holders. Findings: The empirical results revealed that the banks in Portugal and Spain have disclosed an average value of 0.2355 of information on intellectual capital through their webpages in 2016. Relational capital was the component these organizations most disclosed with an average of 0.4529, followed by the disclosure of structural capital, and lastly, human capital. These results reveal that banks adopt a disclosure of intellectual capital strategy based upon the demand for information by the main users of that source of information. Originality/value: The use of a particular index of disclosure of information about intellectual capital applied to the singularity of the banking sector which is the subject of great public interest, and which is a sensitive sector in any countries’ economy, as well as a study that covers two peripheral countries in Southern Europe, reveal to be the factors that we consider that most contribute to the literature on voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital in general and the disclosure of this sector in particular.