Title: Intangibles as innovative drivers for competitive businesses

Authors: Ilídio Tomás Lopes; Catarina Filipa Pitau Ferreira

Addresses: Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisbon, Portugal ' Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract: This paper aims to identify the impact of intangible resources as drivers of firms' performance and profitability, in the major technological firms in the world. Using information from the major technological firms for a four-year economic period, a set of intellectual capital proxies were identified and regressed against the major performance and profitability indicators. The regression model embodies a set of knowledge-based resources intangible (e.g., goodwill, licenses and patents, software and R&D, and advertising expenses) and human capital proxies, aiming to identify potential disaggregated effects of intangibles those key performance indicators. Broadly, results suggest the existence of effective isolated effect for some variables, in particular for intangibles recognised in the financial reporting. Furthermore, this research also suggests that the capitalisation of intangible resources can be associated with region and corresponding accounting standards used in the preparation of the financial reporting.

Keywords: intangibles; intellectual capital; technological firms; R&D; goodwill; accounting standards.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2021.112814

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2021 Vol.24 No.2, pp.238 - 260

Received: 10 Aug 2018
Accepted: 06 Jun 2019
Published online: 04 Feb 2021 *

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