Intellectual capital reporting media in an Australian industry

This study uses content analysis to investigate Intellectual Capital Reporting (ICR) by companies within the Australian Food and Beverage Industry (AFBI). It focuses on the external reporting of a single industry and examines ICR across different reporting media: annual reports and corporate websites. It finds that the extent of reporting on intellectual capital by the sample companies is low and most of the disclosures are declarative in nature. Large discrepancies were found between companies on the format and location of disclosures within the reporting media. This lack of consistency makes comparisons across companies difficult. This finding highlights the need for an established and generally accepted framework for ICR to enable credibility, measurability and comparability. The finding that corporate websites reported less ICR information than the annual reports is inconsistent with previous studies in relation to CSR. It appears that companies within the AFBI may not fully realise the benefits of websites for communicating ICR information.