Intellectual Capital Disclosures: the Search for a new Paradigm in Financial Reporting by the Knowledge Sector of Indian Economy

Abstract

In a rapidly changing world evidenced by a transition from industrial to knowledge economy, India's progressing knowledge sector has attracted the attention of the entire globe. The future drivers of any economy will no longer be capital, land or equipment; but the people and their knowledge. Indian corporate sector, now, is in search of a new paradigm in accounting, which would enable it to record its new journey from financial capital to intellectual capital. With this background in mind, the study of 15 leading Indian Information Technology companies, considered to be highly knowledge intensive, is undertaken in order to find out the disclosure level of recording and reporting of intellectual capital by these companies. An effort has been made in this paper to identify the meaning and significance of intellectual capital and to evaluate the prevailing practices of recording and reporting of intellectual capital by the Information Technology sector in India by using the content analysis method. The results of the study demonstrate that intellectual capital reporting in the Indian Information Technology companies are almost negligible and it is evident that intellectual capital reporting has not received any preference or priority for the mentors of the Indian corporations.