DISCLOSURE ON INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL IN THE AGE OF INDUSTRY 4.0: EVIDENCE FROM ITALIAN CAPITAL MARKET

Matter of interest is the disclosure on Intellectual Capital (IC) in the era of global “knowledge economy” or global “knowledge society”. The aim is to verify the level of disclosure that Italian companies have on the components and on the relevance of their IC. Using the “Content analysis” and a specific method already tested in managerial literature, we propose a report that measures the intellectual capital with the adoption of 21 functional indicators, which consider specific aspects of intangible assets of a firm. Applying the content analysis to financial statements of 31 companies included in FTSE Italy Technology Index and FTSE Italy Financial Services Index, we find that the level of overall disclosure is, on average, moderate but increasing. Observing the disclosure index related to the specific component of intellectual capital considered in this research, all the aspects of IC have benefited, on average, of an improvement in the level of external communication.