Intellectual capital: An accounting change perspective

There is, both in literature and in practice, an increasing attention on Intellectual Capital (IC) as it is generally recognized that its performance contributes to improve the firm overall performance (Dumay, 2012). From the originates a plethora of IC measurement methods and tools have been proposed. Although there is a strong belief in the possibilities of using measurements for managing organizations (Catasús, et al., 2007), both academics and practitioners have questioned IC measurements potential in “practice” (Dumay, 2009; Guthrie, et al., 2012). Stemming from this and considering the call for case studies on Intellectual Capital “in practice” (Dumay, 2009; Guthrie, et al., 2012), the purpose of this study is to investigate IC from an accounting change perspective. In order to achieve this aim, three research questions will lead this analysis: 1) To what extent is it possible to talk about IC as an accounting change? 2) Which logic of change can the implementation of an IC accounting system (ICAS) follow? 3) Which management approach can the implementation of an ICAS follow? This study is based on a field study developed adopting an action research approach. These are the main results. First, IC can lead to a technical and to a substantial change. While new measurements always bring technical innovations, after the introduction of an ICAS pre-existing measurements can assume different meaning. Second, IC accounting change seems to be linear from a technical perspective but the use of the ICAS can have unexpected managerial effects. Third, when IC is introduced from an accounting perspective, the focus is on the measurement of IC. Nevertheless, this situation can change and the focus can be moved to another perspective such as the managerial one.