Title: Intellectual capital efficiency and financial performance in the hotel sector

Authors: José António Fernandes Lopes Oliveira Vale; Vera Cristina Fontes Teixeira Vale; Vânia Sofia Castro Lopes

Addresses: Porto Accounting and Business School, and CEOS.PP, Polytechnic of Porto, Rua Jaime Lopes Amorim, s/n, 4465-004, Porto, Portugal ' DEGEIT, GOVCOPP and CEOS.PP, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal ' Porto Accounting and Business School, Polytechnic of Porto, Rua Jaime Lopes Amorim, s/n, 4465-004, Porto, Portugal

Abstract: In the current knowledge age, intellectual capital (IC) is crucial to create competitive advantages for organisations, something that has been leading to studies about its impact on the financial performance of organisations of different sectors of activity. However, when regarding the hotel sector, this topic is underexplored. This paper aims to understand the relationship between intellectual capital's efficiency and the financial performance of micro, medium, and small-sized Portuguese companies pertaining to the hotel sector. The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between VAIC and hotels' financial performance. More specifically, human capital efficiency and capital-employed efficiency are the most important and statistically significant dimensions, which impact such performance, regardless of the companies' size. This study is not without its limitations. The used methodology (VAIC) does not take into account the traditional taxonomy of IC, i.e., human capital (HC), structural capital (SC) and relational capital (RC).

Keywords: intellectual capital; financial performance; value added intellectual coefficient; VAIC; hospitality; hotel; micro-entities; SME; linear regression.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLIC.2022.119276

International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, 2022 Vol.19 No.1, pp.53 - 71

Received: 09 Jan 2020
Accepted: 08 Jan 2021
Published online: 30 Nov 2021 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article