Intellectual Capital Disclosures in Ghana: The Views of Stakeholders

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the views of stakeholders on Intellectual Capital Disclosures (ICD) in the developing economy of Ghana. This study made use of the survey approach as the method to examine perceptions of stakeholders on ICD in Corporate Annual Reports (CARs). The data were analysed using descriptive and summary statistics. The results of the study show that decisions of stakeholders concerning firms, to some extent, do depend on Intellectual Capital (IC) information disclosed in CARs. The Human Capital (HC) disclosures are relatively more important than Structural Capital (SC) and Relational Capital (RC) disclosures. The growing importance of ICDs is partly attributable to the fact that there is the need for managements to communicate knowledge of management policies and strategies to stakeholders. There is indication that IC information is useful for decision-making purposes of Ghanaian stakeholders. The study concludes that there is little evidence to support the stakeholder and legitimacy theories in Ghanaian corporate environment. The conclusions drawn from this research were rooted on a relatively small sample. The inclusion of more stakeholders in the sample in future studies would help to pinpoint other issues that are of importance on ICD in Ghana. The study sought to raise awareness of Ghanaian stakeholders regarding ICDs. The paper contributes to the extant literature on ICD, as it provides evidence of stakeholders’ perceptions on ICD in CARs.

Keywords: Intellectual Capital (IC), Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD), Stakeholders,Corporate Annual Reports (CARs).