Voluntary Intellectual Capital Reporting in Universities: Insights From Italy

Universities have been described as proper knowledge institutions. Indeed, they produce knowledge, on the one hand through scientific and technical research and on the other hand through teaching. Several guidelines have been issued by the European Union and Governments for the promotion of intellectual capital (IC) voluntary disclosure by universities. Specifically, the Austrian Government has introduced a law establishing mandatory IC report by universities. This report intends to describe the knowledge‐production process through the illustration of activities, social goals and IC assets and the evaluation of university outputs and impacts. The present study is characteristic of the third stage of development of IC research as it comprises a critical exam of IC in practice. The aim of the study is to investigate the amount and nature of voluntary IC disclosure in Italian universities and to gauge the opinion of staff on IC managing and reporting. The study utilises the same methodological approaches applied by Bezhani (2010), which combine content analysis and surveys. The content analysis was applied to a group of 17 voluntary social reports (SRs) issued before February 2013 by universities, while the survey was submitted to all 95 General Directors or Financial Managers of Italian universities. The research found a significant amount of IC disclosure in SRs. No correlation was found between university size and the amount of IC disclosure. Lastly, university staff demonstrated an awareness of benefits deriving from IC managing and reporting and many individuals favour the introduction of mandatory IC reporting. The current paper represents an initial step in assessing IC disclosure in Italian universities and intends to open a discussion between Italian universities and policy‐makers on the benefits of IC managing and reporting and the introduction of mandatory university IC reporting.