Company's intellectual capital impact on market value of Baltic countries listed enterprises

Abstract

Research background: Currently the topic of a company's intellectual capital is being widely investigated by various researchers. Nevertheless, only a small number of studies on the company's intellectual capital impact on its market value were conducted. What is more, the concept of a company's intellectual capital itself is not unified. There are some discrepancies in defining a company's intellectual capital, unifying structural model of the company's intellectual capital, and harmonizing the research methods and models of how to evaluate a company's intellectual capital. Purpose of the article: The aim of the article is to examine various scientific approaches of the company's intellectual capital and its impact on the market value of a respective company; to prepare a model of company's intellectual capital and its impact on the market value. What is more, the aim of this article is to check and test the model effectiveness using an example of the Baltic States listed companies. Methods: Data on 58 Baltic States' companies that are listed in Nasdaq Baltic stock exchange were taken as the basis of the research. Based on four component model (human capital, structural capital, juridical capital, relational capital) a set of indicators for assessing company's intellectual capital was formed. Expert evaluation was used in order to assign weights for different structural parts of intellectual capital. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted in order to find out what factors are the most significant for a company's intellectual capital. In order to find out how specific elements affect company's intellectual capital, a pair-wise multiple correlation and regression analysis were used. An average comparison method was used to reveal differences between companies of different countries. Findings & Value added: The study contributes to the Baltic States' knowledge on intellectual capital. It was detected that it is appropriate to use human capital, structural capital, juridical capital, and relational capital structural parts as components of company's intellectual capital while investigating its impact on market value of a respective company. According to the obtained results, the model of a company's intellectual capital and its impact on the market value was created, optimized, and its validity checked using exploratory factor analysis. The model was used to test the Baltic States listed companies and how their intellectual capital affects the market value. It was identified that intellectual capital in the listed companies of the Baltic States has a positive impact on their market value. Nevertheless, the study revealed that intellectual capital structural parts do not equally affect the market value of listed companies. The findings support the conclusion that human capital and relational capital have the greatest influence on the market value of listed companies. Companies where structural capital comprises the largest proportion of intellectual capital had lower levels of intellectual capital aggregated index, which could be examined in future studies.