Musliha Musman¹
Rashidah Abdul Rahman^2
1Universiti Tekonologi MARA,
Terengganu, Malaysia
²Accounting Research Institute & Faculty of Accountancy
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

This study aims to examine the level of intellectual capital disclosure among listed Malaysian GLCs by comparing them with the Non-GLCs for the period 2007-2009. Content analysis is used to extract the intellectual capital disclosure items from the annual report. The level of intellectual capital is measured with proxies for categories of human, structural and relational capital. The result shows that the GLCs disclose more intellectual capital information than Non-GLCs. This supports the stakeholders’ theory as GLCs call to provide wider information to the stakeholders especially to the public. For GLCs, relational capital is the most reported category, followed by structural capital. In contrast, Non-GLCs disclose their relational and structural capital equally. The result shows that both GLCs and Non-GLCs disclose at least the human capital.

Malaysian companies need to enhance the transparency of human capital development as it acts as a vital role in the foundational sources of innovation toward a knowledge-based economy.

Empirical tests performed in this study include only a relatively moderate sample of companies in Malaysia i.e. only based on 32 GLCs listed in Bursa Malaysia. In addition, the current study only makes use of secondary data based on the annual report of the listed GLCs and Non-GLCs, resulting in the problem of data constraints hence limiting the application of other potential measures.

Keywords: Intellectual capital disclosure, Stakeholder’s theory, Government-Linked Companies.