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The Intellectual Capital Disclosure in the Management Report Before and After the European Directive 95/2014 in Italy

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Non-financial Disclosure and Integrated Reporting

Part of the book series: SIDREA Series in Accounting and Business Administration ((SSABA))

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Abstract

This study investigates IC disclosure before and after the introduction of the EU Directive 2014/95 in Italy to evaluate the effects of the new regulation on companies’ disclosure practices. The EU Directive has been transposed into Italian legislation by the Legislative Decree 254/2016 with no significant differences. Italy provides an interesting setting for this analysis, as IC disclosure was mainly voluntary before the Legislative Decree application. The analysis focuses on the FTSE MIB40 Index, which includes the largest Italian companies. A specific coding framework was developed to analyse IC disclosure before (2016) and after (2017) the application of the Legislative Decree. Our results show that the overall amount of IC information has increased in 2017 as compared to 2016. However, some information seems to have been moved from the management reports to the non-financial statements, suggesting an overlap of the new regulation with the previous one. Further, it is noted that companies continue to privilege the communication of qualitative, non-sensitive information, while quantitative measures are communicated only for those issues for which standardized measures exist. This may give rise to some concern about the effective materiality of disclosed IC information. Main implications for regulators and standard setters are discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, “Ca’ Foscari” University, Venezia, Italy

    Michela Cordazzo

  2. Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Laura Bini

  3. PwC Italy, Milan, Italy

    Lucia Marsura

Authors
  1. Michela Cordazzo
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  2. Laura Bini
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  3. Lucia Marsura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michela Cordazzo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Management, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

    Lino Cinquini

  2. Department of Management and Business Administration, “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, Pescara, Italy

    Francesco De Luca

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Cordazzo, M., Bini, L., Marsura, L. (2022). The Intellectual Capital Disclosure in the Management Report Before and After the European Directive 95/2014 in Italy. In: Cinquini, L., De Luca, F. (eds) Non-financial Disclosure and Integrated Reporting. SIDREA Series in Accounting and Business Administration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90355-8_10

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