Intellectual capital disclosure and intangible value drivers: an empirical study Philip Vergauwen Faculty of Applied Economic Sciences, Universiteit Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium Laury Bollen Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Accounting and Information Management, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and Els Oirbans PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to study the relationship between intellectual capital disclosures (ICDs) and the relative importance of intangible assets as company value drivers. Design/methodology/approach – Annual reports of Swedish, British and Danish firms are analysed to measure the extent of ICD. The level of intellectual capital (IC) in firms, measured with proxies for the categories of human, structural and relational capital. Findings – As to the components of IC, the empirical results indicate that there is a strong significant positive relationship between (the level of) structural capital possession of a firm and the firm’s ICD. Practical implications – This suggests that firms with a relatively high level of structural capital, disclose more information on IC in the annual report. The study found no such significant association between human and relational capital in firms and ICD regarding these items. Firms might have a transparency drawback in addressing these issues in the reports when these IC categories are relatively of greater importance for firms. Originality/value – The paper provides evidence for the argument that firms focus their ICD on those IC elements that are most relevant for the company’s value creation process. Keywords Intangible assets, Intellectual capital, Disclosure, Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction One of the main factors that highlight the importance of intellectual capital (IC) within firms is to shift in the focus of management from tangible to intangible capital when considering the “value creation” processes within firms (Abeysekera, 2006). Research The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm This paper greatly benefited from comments and suggestions made by the participants of the 3rd EIASM Workshop on “Visualizing, Measuring and Managing Intangibles and Intellectual Capital” held in Maastricht, October 25-27 2006. The paper is based on the dissertation Els Oirbans wrote in order to obtain the degree of Master of Science in International Business at the Universiteit Maastricht (Academic Year 2005-2006). ICDs and intangible value drivers 1163 Received February 2007 Revised May 2007 Accepted May 2007 Management Decision Vol. 45 No. 7, 2007 pp. 1163-1180 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740710773961