The communication of intellectual capital: the “whys” and “whats”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify motivations that drive communication of IC (CIC); and second, to investigate content and format used in CIC from three perspectives, namely, human capital information, relational capital information and structural capital information. Design/methodology/approach – A global survey was conducted with 200 banks’ senior executives responsible for annual report (AR), followed by content analysis of each bank’s AR. Findings – The study found four motivations of CIC, namely, management responsibility to stakeholders, collective behavior, corporate responsibility and compliance. Content analysis of banks’ AR found structural capital information most prevalent, followed by human capital and relational capital. Five types of formats were analyzed to show the different presentation used in the CIC. Research limitations/implications – Current data source was limited to banking and focussed on English language publications. Practical implications – The study provides regulators insights to forces that either compel or hinder CIC, and updates literature on management’s thinking and priorities in CIC. Originality/value – This study is possibly the first paper that investigates the motivation of CIC for reporting, where IC is an important asset to organizations. The findings on the content and format used in CIC extend existing studies to a wider, global scale.