Continuities in the use of the intellectual capital statement approach: Elements of an institutional theory analysis

Abstract

The Danish Guideline Project and its principal output, the intellectual capital statement, have attracted only a very limited extent of empirical attention since the conclusion of the initiative in December 2002. The paper reports the findings of a series of semi-structured interviews with individuals employed in the small subset of companies that were found to have persevered with intellectual capital reporting during most of the following decade. Interviews explored three themes: motivations for initiating intellectual capital reporting; reasons for continuing to do so; and details of the implementation and evolution of these practices. The paper utilises a number of elements of institutional theory to organise the findings and to discuss the continuities in intellectual capital reporting practice documented therein.

Keywords:

• Danish Guideline Project
• Institutional theory
• Intellectual capital
• Intellectual capital statements
• Isomorphism

Notes

1 The study was initated on equal terms by the authors and as a collaboration between the “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara in Italy, Aalborg University, Denmark and the University of Dundee, UK.

2 In case company E the original manager of the IC reporting project was still employed elsewhere in the company and so it was decided to interview him along with the current manager so as to cover the whole period of IC reporting, despite the potential drawback of attaining skewed feedback in relation to that specific case.

3 E.g. Company F is considered one of the 1000 largest companies in Denmark, even though it has only about 100 employees.

4 The Business Excellence Model is also known as the EFQM model. See www.efqm.org.