Executive Summary

• Date: 31 December 2010
• Pages: 1-10
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3512(2011)0000021008
• Published date: 31 December 2010

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This study investigated the following aspects of the 100 most entrepreneurial

f‌irms, widely known as the fastest growing f‌irms in Australia. Firstly, the

study analysed the relationship between intellectual capital disclosure types

(narrative, visual and numerical) on company-sponsored websites using

content analysis and the corporate growth aspect of reputation of these

f‌irms over a three-year period (from 2005 to 2007). There are many facets to

reputation. The process aspect that is not translated into f‌inancial output

is part of intellectual capital and is distributed across a wide range of

intellectual capital resource items. Secondly, the study investigated the

perceptions of directors about the importance of intellectual capital resource

items in enhancing corporate reputation. Thirdly, the study identif‌ied

motivations behind the extent of intellectual capital resource items

disclosure on company-sponsored websites when the director perception

survey was inconsistent with such disclosures. A f‌irm’s reputation plays an

inf‌luential role in its capacity to generate greater prof‌its and long-term

growth. Because corporate reputation has many facets, and many studies

have not separated out aspects of corporate reputation in their investiga-

tions, some authors have criticised the f‌indings of previous corporate

reputation research. This study investigated the revenue growth aspect of

corporate reputation, as it is one of the major contributors to corporate

growth in f‌irms.

Five major factors motivated the examination of intellectual capital in the

fastest growing 100 f‌irms in Australia. Firstly, f‌irms cannot show forward-

looking information such as intellectual capital on f‌inancial statements due

to restrictions imposed by accounting standards. Firms can disclose this

information voluntarily, using narrative, visual and numerical data to

inform stakeholders about the value relevance of intellectual capital and,

in this study, to the corporate growth aspect of reputation. Secondly,

the fastest growing f‌irms have demonstrated accelerated revenue growth

over the three years of this study, and, of them, the top 100 represent an

empirically fruitful site for the examination of corporate reputation.

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