Intangible economy : How can investors deliver change in businesses? Lessons from nonprofit-business partnerships

Investors traditionally prioritised tangible outcomes (money, land, machinery) in order to protect their financial assets. However, the intangible economy (trust, human resources, information, reputation) that co-exists draws attention to new expectations that request the continuous, active and within the public sphere involvement of investors in order to protect their assets by prioritising intangible resources. The paper argues that investors in intangible outcomes who aim to achieve change in corporations share the same limitations within the financial and non-financial field. The case of Nonprofit-Business Partnerships is employed in order to demonstrate how change can be achieved. The role of investors is crucial in facilitating the shift from the tangible to the intangible economy. Investment in the intangible economy is a mechanism of co-determining the priority of responsibilities in the context of corporate social responsibility

Corporate responsibility and financial performance : the role of intangible resources.

This paper examines the effects of a firm’s intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm’s intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries.

Intangible resources, agglomeration effect of FDI intensity, and firm performance: Evidence from Chinese semiconductor firms

This study analyzes the impact of intangible resources on firm performance in an emerging economy context. Intangible resources are considered essential to firms? competitive advantage; however, we argue that firms? intangible resources can be negatively related with performance in emerging economies, due to their weak intellectual property rights protection. Furthermore, we incorporate the resource-based view and geographical agglomeration perspective to propose that geographical locations with dense foreign direct investment can affect the appropriability of intangible resources, thereby moderating the relationship between intangible resources and firm performance. We find empirical evidence to support our argument by examining 70 semiconductor firms in China from 1999 to 2006 period.intangible resources, intellectual property, agglomeration, foreign direct investment, emerging economy

Researches in a sistemic approach of intangible assets accounting

Entities frequently spend resources or attire debts to purchase, develop, maintain or extend intangible resources like scientific or technical knowledge, design and implementation of new processes and systems, licenses, intellectual property, knowledge on market and brands (including trademarks and advertising titles). Commune samples of incorporated elements in these vast directions are software, patents, authors right, cinematography movies, consumer lists, rights concerning mortgage services, fishing licenses, importation quotes, franchise, relationships with consumers or suppliers, consumer’s loyalty, market share and marketing rights. Not all the above described elements correspond to the definition of an intangible asset, namely the identifiable character, control on some resources and the existence of some future economical advantages. In case an element entering under the incidence of the present standard does not correspond to the definition of an intangible asset, the expenses with purchase or its realization on internal level is recognized as expense when paid. Still, in case achieved as part of a mixture of enterprises, the element in discussion is part of the commercial fund, recognized at the purchase moment. An intangible asset must be recognized in the balance sheet in case estimated to generate economical advantages for the entity and the cost of the asset can be discharged in a credible/reliable manner. Moreover, in respect to this general definition, the International Accounting Standards come with specific elements connected to the recognition of the intangible asset in the financial situations. According to IAS 38 “Intangible assets”, an intangible asset is an asset that can be identified as non-monetary, without material support and possessed to be used in the production process or for the supply of goods or services, to be rented to some other persons, or for administrative purposes.Intangible assets, tangible assets, International standard, accounting, amortization, cost, expenses

ICT industry and resources based analysis of maintenance SME in the Central Europe

Highly competitive situation in Information and Communication technology (ICT) maintenance industry requires a precise analysis of all important factors and carefully defined company strategy which addresses each of these aspects. This paper presents a resource based analysis of family run SME, operating in IT parts and consumables market. In order to understand this complex view, it first describes the company background. It briefly presents the industry key success factors and company strategy of the SME. The value chain analysis helps to name the main organization’s capabilities and evaluates them in terms of costs and customer willingness to pay. Resource audit provides an analysis of key company tangible, intangible and human resources. The outcome of this audit shows that most of SME resources are of an intangible nature. Contrary to the higher mobility of today’s resources, intangible resources of SME such as company reputation, culture and strategic business relations, are mostly immobile and inimitable. Based on the audit all key resources and capabilities are appraised by their strength and importance relative to closest rivals. Results are presented in graph which recognizes the key strengths (family run business related) and weaknesses (IT and finance). The results of the resourced based analysis lead to recommendations for changes in order to create and retain competitive advantage.ICT, resource based analysis, resources, capabilities, strategy, SME, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, GA, IN,

Financial Disclosure and the Board: Is Independence of Directors Always Efficient

In listed companies, the Board of directors is the ultimate responsible of information disclosure. The "conventional wisdom" considers independence of directors as the essential attribute to improve the quality of that disclosure. In a sense, this approach subordinates expertise to independence. However, effective certification may require finn-specific expertise, in particular for intangible-intensive business models. However, this latter form of expertise is negatively related to independence as it is commonly measured and evaluated. We show that there exists an optimal share of independent directors for each company, related to the magnitude of intangible resources.Board of directors; information disclosure; accounting; intangible resources

Intangible Investment in Japan: New Estimates and Contribution to Economic Growth

The purpose of this paper is to measure intangible assets, to construct the capital stock of intangible assets, and to examine the contribution of intangible capital to economic growth in Japan. We follow the approach of Corrado, Hulten, and Sichel (2005, 2006) to measure intangible investment using the 2008 version of the Japan Industrial Productivity (JIP) Database. We find that the ratio of intangible investment to GDP in Japan has risen during the past 20 years and now stands at 11.6%, which is lower than the ratio estimated for the United States in the early 2000s. The ratio of intangible to tangible investment in Japan is also lower than equivalent values estimated for the United States. In addition, we find that, in stark contrast with the United States, where intangible capital grew rapidly in the late 1990s, the growth rate of intangible capital in Japan declined from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In order to examine the robustness of our results, we also conducted a sensitivity analysis and found that the slowdown of the contribution of intangible capital deepening to economic growth and the recovery in Multi-Factor Productivity (MFP) growth from the second half of the 1990s observed in our base case remain unchanged even if we take on-the-job training and Japanese data with respect to investment in firm-specific resources into account.intangible investment, labor productivity, growth accounting

Measuring intangibles' productivity. Empirical evidence from Spanish firms

As companies and shareholders begin to note the potential repercussions of intangible assets upon business results, the inability of the traditional financial statement model to reflect these new ways of creating business value has become evident. Companies have widely adopted new management tools, covering in this way the inability of the traditional financial statement model to reflect these new ways of creating business value. However, there are few prior studies measuring on a quantifiable manner the level of productivity unexplained in the financial statements. In this study, we measure the effect of intangible assets on productivity using data from Spanish firms selected randomly by size and sector over a ten-year period, from 1995 to 2004. Through a sample of more than 10,000 Spanish firms we analyse to what extent labour productivity can be explained by physical capital deepening, by quantified intangible capital deepening and by firm’s economic efficiency (or total factor productivity –PTF). Our results confirm the hypothesis that PTF weigh has increased during the period studied, especially on those firms that have experienced a significant raise in quantified intangible capital, evidencing that there are some important complementary effects between capital investment and intangible resources in the explanation of productivity growth. These results have significant differences considering economic sector and firm’s dimension.Intangibles, Accounting, Spain

Towards an advanced impact analysis of intangible resources in organisations

The paper refers to the discussion of measuring and assessing knowledge capital. In particular, the interconnectedness of the intangible resources in organizations is not well represented in the methodical approaches. Moreover, the identification of driver resources which is strongly connected with this question is far from being solved in a satisfactory manner. Therefore, this article reviews existing methods of the scenario analysis in view of the performance measurement discussion and contributes towards an advanced analysis of resources in organizations. --ADVIAN method,driver,impact analysis,intangible resource,knowledge capital,MICMAC method,performance measurement system

Knowledge-based industry and regional growth

One of the most important but less understood phenomena in the beginning of the 21st century has been a shift toward knowledge-based economic activity in the comparative advantage of modern industrialized countries. Two broad trends has been observed in the global economy. That is, the output from the world's science and technology system has been growing rapidly and the nature of investment has been changed (MILLER, 1996). The relative proportions of physical and intangible investment have changed considerably with the relative increase of intangible investments since the 1980s. In addition, there has been increased complementarity between physical and intangible investments and more important role of high technology in both kinds of investment (MILLER, 1996). Even in the newly industrialized countries, the growth of technology intensive industries, the increase of R&D activities and the growth of the knowledge intensive producer services have been common feature in recent years. In this change of the structure of productive assets, the role of knowledge is well recognized as the most fundamental resources in recent years (OECD, 1996; WORLD BANK, 1998). The development of information and communication technology (ICT) and globalisation trend have promoted this shift toward knowledge-based economy