Italian web-based disclosure: A new index to measure the information released on human capital

Abstract

This paper investigates the human capital (HC) disclosure provided by a sample of Italian nonfinancial listed companies on their website. Different from previous studies on HC disclosure, which mainly referred to Sveiby’s model, our disclosure index includes items concerning both the stock of knowledge and capabilities of employees and the human resource management practices. Unlike prior researches, we found a higher level of HC disclosure released by firms, demonstrating that the use of a wider index permits a better understanding of the companies’ disclosure behavior. This study contributes to the literature on HC disclosure in different ways. First, we develop a wider HC disclosure index, which could be used in future studies, and compare our results with findings of previous research. Moreover, this is the first study, to the best of our knowledge, examining HC disclosure provided by Italian companies on their website.