Measuring intellectual capital and its effect on financial performance: Evidence from the capital market in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper studies intellectual capital in companies in Taiwan, China. Intellectual capital is an invisible, yet important resource for companies. The first aim of this paper is to provide a systematic investigation on how to measure intellectual capital. Results show that the coefficient of value-added intellectual capital is positively related to return on assets and market capitalization in both fix and random effects. Similar results are also obtained with dynamic panel data. Furthermore, innovation variables such as research and development expenditure are more accurate than structural capital in measuring intellectual capital. The author thus suggests that companies need to keep a close track of their intellectual capital and focus on internal information delivery to gain competitive advantage. © 2011 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.