Company characteristics and voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital : A study on Swedish listed companies

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to identify the determinants of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital in a Swedish context in 2013. Research design – The thesis is a quantitative, cross sectional study. The data is collected from firms’ annual reports using a disclosure index developed by Bukh et al. (2005). The data was analysed using ANOVA, Mann Whitney U-test and Pearson’s’ r. Findings – The drivers of voluntary disclosure in a Swedish context are industry type, age and size. There was no significant relationship found between ownership concentration, leverage and profitability and the amount of voluntary disclosure. Contribution – There has been a limited amount of research performed on Swedish companies and voluntary disclosure. This study contribute trough mapping the disclosure situation in Sweden. The study also offers an insight to the situation the year before the new directive (2014/95/EU). Value – This paper gives a recent depiction of the disclosure situation in Sweden. The thesis has a more extended theoretical framework than previous studies and interpret the result with four different theories.