Recognition of intellectual capital importance in the university sector

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to know the opinion of the university stakeholders regarding the importance they give to intellectual capital reporting. To this end, a questionnaire was designed and sent to every member of the Social Councils of Spanish public universities. The results of our empirical study show that the current annual accounts published by universities barely cover the information needs of the different stakeholders. These results allow us to recommend extending the limits of universities’ annual accounts so as to include the information on intellectual capital demanded by the different stakeholders. In our opinion, the traditional accounting systems do not suffice for higher education institutions, whose value creation depends more on intellectual capital type resources. Finally, this empirical study identifies which of components of intellectual capital (human, structural and relation) is the most relevant for publication. The results show that the information most valued by the different stakeholder groups is that related to relational capital, followed by human and then lastly structural capital.