Intellectual capital in tourism and hospitality sector: an empirical study of Portuguese tourism regions

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Lurdes
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Costa, Vânia, Loureiro, Paula
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/2280
• topic: Hospitality; Human Capital; Intellectual Capital; Tourism Sector; Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC)

According to the literature, the intellectual capital is a critical element of value creation in organization, able to contribute for sustainable and higher financial income. This work aims to identify the added value and the efficiency of intellectual capital in its three dimensions - (i) human capital, (ii) structural capital and (iii) relational capital in the tourism sector companies, analysing tourism regions in Portugal. Data are draw from Simplified Business Information based on the Iberian Balance Analysis System (SABI). This study was performed with a sample of sheets and financial reports of 46 951 Portuguese companies in the tourism sector, during the 2007 to 2016 period. The results reveal that the Açores region grew the most in the number of tourism companies in this period, and Madeira was the region with the lowest growth. The average Value Added Intellectual Capital (VAIC) indicator in 2007 is higher in the Madeira region, with Açores having the highest average of VAIC in 2016, becoming by that the region that most effectively converts intellectual capital into financial capital. There are also differences between more tourism regions in 2016 compared to 2007 in all the indicators analysed, namely VAIC, capital employed efficiency and intellectual capital efficiency, which may possible concluded that was an increasing trend of innovation and uniqueness of the tourism sector in each region, generating greater added value for companies in this sector. Objetives: According to the literature, the intellectual capital is one of the main competitiveness enhancers of today's companies and a fundamental dimension of organizational performance. This work aims to: (1) identify the added value and the efficiency of intellectual capital in its three dimensions - (i) human capital, (ii) structural capital and (iii) relational capital – in the tourism sector, with the analysis of the tourism regions in Portugal, (2) evaluate its impact on the business performance;(3) analyze the results according to the tourism region where the companies are based in. Theoretical Reference – Organizations need to adopt new forms of management in order to ensure their competitiveness, which may pass by investing in areas such as employee training, customer relations, research and development. These investments fall in the intellectual capital approach. The components of intellectual capital are human capital, structural capital and relational capital. The human capital is the knowledge and skills of individual workers, the structural capital is a strategic asset that includes infrastructure, information systems, internal processes and the relational capital is the value of the relations established with the stakeholders. These components of intellectual capital are the drivers of value creation that contribute most to innovation and sustained achievement of competitive advantages. Pulic (1998, 2000, 2003 and 2005) was one of the first authors that focused the research on the perspective of intellectual capital in order to explicitly focus on the relationship between intellectual capital and economic performance. For the design of the VAIC model, the author part of the goal to find a way of measuring the knowledge-based economy that is able to indicate the amount of value created (Flores, García & Adame, 2017). According to the authors, the main argument of Pulic (2008) draws on the knowledge of human resources that transform and incorporate knowledge into products and services that create value. In this sense, the author interprets the costs with knowledge workers as an investment in human capital, which expects a return. This study intended to measure the extent to which a company produces added value based on the use of intellectual capital that is measured by the sum of ratios that incorporate the three components in which the model is based. Metodology Data are draw from Simplified Business Information based on the SABI. This study was performed with a sample of sheets and financial reports of 46 951 Portuguese companies in the tourism sector, during the period 2007 to 2016. Conclusions/Results - The analysis by tourism region in Portugal showed that, in the period from 2007 to 2016, it is in the region of Lisbon Metropolitan Area that is concentrated the largest number of tourism companies, being the region with the highest percentage of employment in this sector and, consequently, higher levels of spending on salaries. There is also a trend of costs with proportionally lower wages in the North region. The Açores region has a higher growth rate in the number of tourism companies in the period analysed (more than 200%) and the region of Madeira to which the number of companies grew the least in the same period. The growth in the number of companies in the Açores region is accompanied by a higher average in the VAIC indicator in 2016 compared to the other regions, with the region of Madeira having the highest average in this indicator in 2007. The Açores are thus revealed not only to be the region that grew the most, but also the one that was most effective in converting intellectual resources into financial resources. This indicator shows more differences between pairs of regions in 2016 than in 2007, with a greater gap between regions in the VAIC in 2016. The employed efficiency coefficient indicator, which represents the efficiency coefficient of physical and financial capital, is the one that presents statistically significant results to confirm the existence of differences between more tourism regions, both in 2007 and in 2016. Resarch Implications- The intellectual capital is recognized in the literature as the most important productivity factor in the current economy. We have seen a dramatic growth of intangible factors of development in the world in the last decades of the twentieth century, being responsible for this situation the large mergers and acquisitions, the expansion in the services sector, the sophistication of the technologies and markets and the strong customer orientation (Rodrigues, 2011). Pulic (1998) sought, through the VAIC model, to measure business performance in the knowledge-based economy through the quantification of the intellectual efficiency in value creation context. This study sought to analyse the efficiency of intellectual capital value creation in the tourism sector in Portugal from 2007 to 2016. The results revealed the concept that intellectual capital has the potential to become the new source of wealth in the Portuguese hospitality and tourism sectors. Originality- The paper represents a pioneering attempt to understand the relationship of intellectual capital and firm’s performance on Portuguese tourism sector’s, to provide solid recommendations for the importance of intellectual capital in the sustainable growth of organizations in this sector