Intellectual Capital Reporting: Evidence from Malaysian Companies

Objective – This study aims to examine the extent, nature and form of IC disclosure in the annual reports of 70 largest Malaysian companies listed in Bursa Malaysia based on market capitalization in the year 2006. Methodology/Technique – The study adopts the classification of IC disclosure by Huang et al. (2007) with three broad IC categories, namely human capital, structural capital and relational capital in forty-five items. Content analysis was used to collect the IC data in the annual reports. Findings – Results show that the disclosure covers a wide range of IC items. The pattern of IC disclosure tends to focus more on items in the relational capital and human capital, while internal capital is reported the least. The five top favourable IC disclosures are three items from relational capital which are growth in business or service volume, followed by society's image of the company and market demand for products/services. Another two items are leadership qualities of managers and employee work-related knowledge from human capital theme. The least favourable IC disclosures are length of time for product design development, life cycle of product, key employee turnover, employee loyalty and employee job satisfaction. Novelty – Findings of this study help users to understand which IC resources are considered as value drivers to companies. Type of Paper: Empirical