Purpose: Mandatory disclosure of a firm’s intellectual capital (IC) is restricted by accounting regulations, leading companies to use voluntary disclosure to inform their stakeholders about their IC. However, voluntary IC disclosure (ICD) is costly and may lead to a leak of knowledge....

Despite the importance of intellectual capital (IC), accounting standards are conservative concerning the capitalization of IC as assets. Thus, intangible-intensive firms disclose additional IC information, e.g. in their annual reports. The market-to-book value (MBV) ratio is regarded as an...