Intellectual Capital and business performance. Evidence from Italian banking industry

This study intends to investigate empirically the relation between the value creation efficiencyand firms’ market valuation and financial performance, by using data drawn from 21 banksenlisted in the Milan Stock Exchange, Italy. More specifically, by using Pulic’s (1998, 2000, 2001,2002) Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) as the efficiency measure of capital employedand intellectual capital, the study examines the relationship between intellectual capital and firms’financial performance, and explores the relation between corporate value creation efficiency andfirms’market-to-book value ratios. Multiple regression analysis have been conducted on thecollected data. Surprisingly, the results do not show any strong association between the studiedvariable, except for the relation between a component of VAIC, the CEE, and the differentmeasures of the firm’s performance.