بکارگیری اطلاعات سرمایه فکری در تصمیمات سرمایه گذاری: یک مطالعه تجربی با استفاده از گزارش های تحلیلگران

Do financial analysts convey intellectual capital information in their recommendations? This study of a sample of analyst reports on large, listed Spanish companies provides some evidence on the question. Analysts usually report information regarding a company's strategy, customers, and processes; they less often provide information about research, development, and innovation. When controlling for endogeneity, we find that certain firm characteristics appear to influence the use of intellectual capital information. Analysts use this information in the case of highly profitable companies. The results also show a significant effect of growth opportunities on intellectual capital disclosure by financial analysts.

Increasing competition, development of new business sectors, and technological advances have generated some frustration over traditional financial statements (FASB, 2001b). Financial statements suffer from a lack of timeliness, (some) inaccuracy, and a limited ability to convey prospective data and risks facing the firm. In this context, financial analysts, as information intermediaries, are increasingly aware of the importance of company information that is not directly reflected in financial statements. Intangibles have become an important source of corporate value and firm wealth in our era of globalization, technological change, and knowledge-intensive processes. We know little about the way financial analysts use this information. The first objective of our study is to quantify the extent and type of disclosure of intangibles in financial analyst's reports. The underlying methodology is a comprehensive analysis of the disclosure of intangibles in 260 analyst reports for Spanish listed firms from 2000 to 2003. Our results show that financial analysts focus on particular intellectual capital information. In more than 70% of the reports, they cite information about new investments, firm credibility, and consistency of strategy, as well as its strategic alliances and agreements. They do not place a great deal of emphasis on measures of innovation, research, and development, probably because it is difficult to obtain these data and there is also a risk that the release of such information could be beneficial to competitors. After studying the intellectual capital information included in analyst reports, we analyze the determinants of these disclosures on intangibles. The second objective of this study is to evaluate to what extent international firm listing, profitability, firm risk, and type of analyst recommendation influence intellectual capital information use. The regression-based approach constructed in this paper takes into account the endogenous relation between the use of intellectual capital information by financial analysts and their recommendations. Since in the presence of endogeneity, ordinary-least-squares estimation yields biased and inconsistent coefficient estimates, we base our analysis on a two-stage-least-squares estimation. We find that, as predicted, the firm's profitability influences the extent of intellectual capital information use. Analysts provide more intellectual capital information in reports on profitable firms. The empirical analysis also shows a significant effect of growth opportunities on intellectual capital disclosure. In firms with high market-to-book ratios, analysts tend to include more intellectual capital information to justify their recommendations. Some of the variation in the amount of disclosure of intangibles is also explained by year, type of analyst report, and industry. Analysis of the content of reports provides some evidence of the role of analysts as intermediaries between managers and investors. These results may help to improve methodologies to assist investment decision makers. The findings also have direct implications for accounting and financial-reporting policy. The influence of intangibles in modern corporations has led policy makers and accounting standard-setting boards to consider proposals to enhance information on intangibles in corporate financial reports. In order to establish a policy, one needs to know how investment analysts, as sophisticated consumers of financial information, actually use both financial and non-financial information (Schipper, 1991). The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides background for the analysis of non-financial information used by financial analysts; the methodology and study design are discussed in the third section; the fourth section presents the test results; and the final section of the paper summarizes the conclusions, describes limitations, and discusses implications for future research.

To gain some insight into the relevance of intellectual capital information for financial analysts, we examine a sample of analyst reports for the essential items considered most relevant in justifying recommendations. The items most frequently included are related to coherence and credibility of strategy, new investments, and firms' products, alliances, or leadership. It is obviously harder for analysts to obtain data on innovation when companies do not want to risk releasing information that could be beneficial to competitors. In controlling for endogeneity, our study provides evidence on why the average magnitude of intellectual capital information in analyst reports is greater for some firms than for others. Some variation in the extent of disclosure of intangibles is explained by the profitability of the firm. Financial analysts have better access to information about a profitable firm's intellectual capital because they acquire other information. This supports agency, signalling, and political-process theories that profitable firms provide superior information resources. Growth opportunities also explain variations in disclosures on intangibles in analyst reports. Financial statements are relatively less informative for firms with high market-to-book ratios, and here analysts tend to include more intellectual capital information to justify their recommendations. In this case, firms and investors demand more information about the role a company's intangibles play in value-creation. The results show significant differences in the use of intellectual capital information according to type of report. We are more likely to find data about intangibles in reports that deal with specific strategic issues, such as new products or changes in a firm's strategy, and that are often issued to generate investment banking and brokerage business for their firms. These results would confirm the role of intellectual capital information as a marketing device, if the primary objective of financial analysts is to generate commission income. We reject the hypothesis that a report on an internationally listed company includes more information on intangibles than a report on a nationally listed company. Nor are there differences by firm risk, firm size, or analyst recommendation. This research makes a variety of important contributions, particularly quantification of intellectual capital information in analyst reports and identification of factors that influence the use of these data. It extends survey, questionnaire, and interview research to address the relevance of non-financial information. Financial analysts are both primary users of financial information and key information intermediaries. Their needs must be taken into account when regulators establish accounting policy and set standards. Our work shows that much of the information analyst reports include does not appear in traditional financial statements. Modified reporting standards that specify additional types of information might better meet investor needs and mitigate problems of information asymmetry in capital markets. Our results have several inherent limitations. We cannot know what information analysts may have relied on but did not report. Neither do we know about information that was unavailable and that might have been useful. Nor can we directly infer analyst information needs from seeing how often an information item is mentioned in reports. We can only assume that analyst reports deliver relevant information efficiently and effectively, and that analysts have no incentive to include extraneous information for any reason. Other items in different categories or distributions might have been considered, which could obviously influence interpretation of the results. There is no generally accepted theory or classification scheme for intellectual capital. Today's frameworks are ad hoc, and empirical work on the nature of intangibles is in its early stages. Our results, nevertheless, suggest several questions for future research. We know analysts use intellectual capital information. Does access to and provision of intellectual capital information make forecasts more accurate?