Intellectual capital communication: evidence from social and sustainability reporting

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level and quality of intellectual capital information communicated through social and sustainability report for a sample of 37 Italian listed company over two years (2005 and 2006). The study use the resource based theory to explain the relationship between corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital. Content analysis is applied through a multidimensional framework composed by three main disclosure profiles(time orientation, nature and type of information) which permits to analyse in depth the quality of intellectual capital information. The results highlight significant and increasing presence of intellectual capital information in CSR reports which is communicated principally in non financial, quantitative and non time specific terms. Human capital is the most reported category followed by relational and organisational capital. There are many similarities between the two typology of report contributing to the ongoing debate on corporate reporting practices.The results suggest that the integration between IC report and CSR report is a plausible issue and that could be useful to enhance the transparency and the understanding of company processes and activities both for internal and external stakeholders. Very few studies have analysed the intellectual capital in CSR report in atheoretical and mono-dimensional way. Moreover the resource base theory has been scarcely applied to explain the disclosure of intellectual capital even if there are several similarities between the two perspectives.intellectual capital, disclosure, social and sustainability reporting, resource based view, corporate social responsibility

Communicating Intellectual Capital: Evidence from Social and Sustainability Reporting

Since the work of Guthrie & Petty (2000) several studies on intellectual capital (IC) reporting have been made to analyze the company disclosure process both public and private communication channels. Within public communication channels, company annual report is the most used document but in general it shows a low level of IC information. Other analyzed public channels are the initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses (Bukh et al. 2005; Cordazzo, 2007), the intellectual capital statements (Bukh et al., 2001; Mouritsen et al., 2001, 2002) and the web sites (Gerpott et al., 2008), all showing different level of IC information. The aim of this paper is to assess in depth the intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) communicated through social and sustainability reports in a sample of 37 Italian listed companies by a longitudinal content analysis (2005, 2006). IC disclosure (on human, organizational and relation capital) is analyzed in quantitative & qualitative, time dimension and financial & non financial terms in order to analyzed more in depth the ICD process. Findings show an overall increase in all categories of intellectual capital over the two years with a particular relevance for the organizational capital category. Overall the amount of ICD is higher when compared to the majority of previous studies based on annual report and it demonstrates the need to investigate more in depth a wide range of company reports to understand carefully the companies intellectual capital disclosure process and the possibility to integrate intellectual capital report and social and sustainability reporting in a single report.

Intellectual capital communication: evidence from social and sustainability reporting

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level and quality of intellectual capital information communicated through social and sustainability report for a sample of 37 Italian listed company over two years (2005 and 2006). The study use the resource based theory to explain the relationship between corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital. Content analysis is applied through a multidimensional framework composed by three main disclosure profiles(time orientation, nature and type of information) which permits to analyse in depth the quality of intellectual capital information. The results highlight significant and increasing presence of intellectual capital information in CSR reports which is communicated principally in non financial, quantitative and non time specific terms. Human capital is the most reported category followed by relational and organisational capital. There are many similarities between the two typology of report contributing to the ongoing debate on corporate reporting practices.The results suggest that the integration between IC report and CSR report is a plausible issue and that could be useful to enhance the transparency and the understanding of company processes and activities both for internal and external stakeholders. Very few studies have analysed the intellectual capital in CSR report in atheoretical and mono-dimensional way. Moreover the resource base theory has been scarcely applied to explain the disclosure of intellectual capital even if there are several similarities between the two perspectives

Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic: the technical, moral and facilitating role of management control

Purpose – The study analyses how management control supports the organisation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.Design/methodology/approach – Video interviews with top and middle-level managers who were directly involved in handling the response to the COVID-19 crisis in late winter and spring 2020 form the empirical base. The object-of-control framework and the distinction between organic and mechanistic management controls inform the exploratory case analysis of a large food retail cooperative in Italy.Findings – Both organic and mechanistic management control mechanisms enabled an immediate response and management of the crisis. The use of cultural, action and results controls supported employees' health and safety coordination, a tight monitoring of financial performance and social interventions in support of the local community. Originality/value – The study provides original exploratory insights on the use and role of management control in the context of an unprecedented emergency and an unplanned setting (i.e. a pandemic crisis), which is an under-investigated topic in the accounting literature. The study shows how management control operated, linking moral and technical aspects as well as facilitating organisational adaptation and pandemic effects mitigation

Understanding performance measurement in public organization under pragmatic constructivism

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly to explore how a constructivist pragmatic approach may be applied to understand critical aspects of performance measurement in a public organization. And secondly, to contribute in proposing some effective characteristics of the potential PMS in the same setting. To this aims we analyze how different topoi may cohabit in a Regional Authority. This topic is particular important because the convergence of different topoi is crucial for the achievement of common organizational visions and to achieve organizational goals. The investigation of topoi was supported by interviews and focus groups that involved two organizational positions of an Italian Regional Authority: Top Managers and Middle Managers. These two organizational positions were chosen because they perform different types of activities and hence we can expect different topoi. The aim of interviews and focus group was to trace values, facts, logic and communication that form the topos driving the perception of performance. Interviews involved 7 Top Managers in charge of the 7 divisions of the Region and 15 Middle Managers in charge of departments. 17 focus groups involved 90 Middle Managers in charge of responsibility areas under each department.Results underline that Top Managers and Middle Managers are driven by different topoi and have a different concept of performance at the base of their efforts: Top Managers require flexibility and professionalisms in their work, while Middle Managers require precise plans and rules. The result is that different topoi have different concepts of performance and that the performance of the Regional Authority and the contribution of organizational actors to the achievement of organizational goals result unclear and confused. Findings underline that the alignment of topoi is of utmost importance to the design of an effective PMS in the organization: increasing the communication between these two organizational levels may favor the convergence of the two topoi and increase the clarity of the Regional Authority performance goals and measures

Intellectual capital communication: evidence from social and sustainability reporting

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level and quality of intellectual capital information communicated through social and sustainability report for a sample of 37 Italian listed company over two years (2005 and 2006). The study use the resource based theory to explain the relationship between corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital. Content analysis is applied through a multidimensional framework composed by three main disclosure profiles(time orientation, nature and type of information) which permits to analyse in depth the quality of intellectual capital information. The results highlight significant and increasing presence of intellectual capital information in CSR reports which is communicated principally in non financial, quantitative and non time specific terms. Human capital is the most reported category followed by relational and organisational capital. There are many similarities between the two typology of report contributing to the ongoing debate on corporate reporting practices.The results suggest that the integration between IC report and CSR report is a plausible issue and that could be useful to enhance the transparency and the understanding of company processes and activities both for internal and external stakeholders. Very few studies have analysed the intellectual capital in CSR report in atheoretical and mono-dimensional way. Moreover the resource base theory has been scarcely applied to explain the disclosure of intellectual capital even if there are several similarities between the two perspectives

Il Capitale Intellettuale nella Comunicazione Aziendale: il ruolo dei Bilanci Sociali e di Sostenibilità

Nell’ambito degli studi sulle risorse intangibili e sul capitale intellettuale, a partire dagli anni 2000, particolare attenzione è stata posta sull’analisi delle pratiche di disclosure volontaria allo scopo di verificare le capacità delle aziende di comunicare informazioni riguardanti le fonti primarie del vantaggio competitivo. La disclosure volontaria viene considerata un’importante area della comunicazione aziendale in quanto permette di aumentare il livello di trasparenza dell’azienda nei confronti degli stakeholders, di generare positivi ritorni finanziari e sociali e di differenziare l’azienda rispetto ai suoi concorrenti. I numerosi studi sulla disclosure volontaria del capitale intellettuale, svolti nell’ultima decade ed aventi per oggetto i canali informativi pubblici hanno mostrato risultati contrastanti e incompleti. Le cause di tale incompleta rappresentazione sono ascrivibili a due fattori principali: a) l’eccessivo utilizzo dell’annual report come documento di indagine e b) la mancanza di rigore e trasparenza nell’utilizzo delle metodologie di indagine. Per tale motivo l’analisi del fenomeno viene ancora ad essere considerata una delle principali aree di ricerca nell’ambito della comunicazione aziendale. L’eccessivo utilizzo dell’annual report è stato recentemente criticato in letteratura sostenendo che se si vuole incrementare il livello di conoscenza sull’argomento è necessario investigare le altre tipologie di report che al momento sono state scarsamente analizzate. Tra di essi vi sono i bilanci sociali e di sostenibilità. I primi studi esplorativi hanno infatti osservato che esistono numerosi punti in comune tra bilancio sociale e di sostenibilità e report del capitale intellettuale. Inoltre gli studi sulla responsabilità sociale, sviluppatisi nell’ambito del management, hanno evidenziato un forte legame tra azioni di responsabilità sociale e generazione delle risorse intangibili confermando, dal punto di vista teorico, la possibile presenza di informazioni relative alle risorse intangibili all’interno di queste tipologie di report. In Italia, nel corso degli ultimi anni, c’è stata una grande attenzione sui temi della responsabilità sociale e del capitale intellettuale e alcune ricerche sono già state realizzate al fine di investigare la presenza di informazioni volontarie sul capitale intellettuale nei bilanci sociali e di sostenibilità. Il presente studio si colloca in questo ambito e si pone l’obiettivo di estendere e raffinare la conoscenza esistente sull’argomento attraverso: a) l’analisi teorica dei legami tra responsabilità sociale e risorse intangibili; b) l’analisi multidimensionale e qualitativa della disclosure sul capitale intellettuale. L’obiettivo di fondo della ricerca è di comprendere se e come le aziende italiane che pubblicano i bilanci sociali e di sostenibilità, comunicano, attraverso essi, informazioni relative alle proprie risorse intangibili. A livello generale lo studio contribuisce all’analisi del processo di comunicazione, multiforme e complesso, del capitale intellettuale che nel corso degli ultimi anni, ha ricevuto sempre più attenzione nell’ambito degli studi di accounting. Inoltre effettua una prima analisi del legame esistente tra azioni di responsabilità sociale, sviluppo delle risorse intangibili e comunicazione aziendale. Il lavoro è strutturato su cinque capitoli. Il primo capitolo analizza i temi della comunicazione aziendale, delle risorse intangibili e della responsabilità sociale negli studi economico-aziendali e definisce il concetto di comunicazione aziendale, il ruolo che essa svolge nell’azienda, le varie aree in cui può essere suddivisa ed i concetti di intangibles e capitale intellettuale. Il secondo capitolo presenta un’analisi della principale letteratura internazionale sul tema della disclosure volontaria del capitale intellettuale individuando i risultati raggiunti, le ulteriori aree da analizzare e specificando l’oggetto di ricerca del presente lavoro. Nel terzo capitolo nella prima parte sono analizzati i principali quadri teorici di analisi inerenti la disclosure volontaria, le caratteristiche della resource based theory e il concetto di responsabilità sociale. Nella seconda parte viene investigato il legame tra azioni di responsabilità sociale, generazione dei beni intangibili e disclosure volontaria. Il capitolo quattro è dedicato alla ricerca empirica. Dopo l’analisi delle caratteristiche e dello stato dell’arte in Italia dei bilanci sociali e di sostenibilità, vengono descritte le caratteristiche del metodo di ricerca applicato e infine analizzati e discussi i risultati emersi. Infine il quinto e ultimo capitolo traccia alcune considerazioni conclusive sull’intero lavoro di ricerca svolto