It is with great pleasure that we announce that Doctoral candidate George Majdalany will be presenting a paper at the 5th European Conference on Intellectual Capital. Mr. Majdalany’s paper is entitled: “The Effect of Intellectual Assets and Intellectual Liabilities Disclosure on Financial Performance: An Empirical Analysis of Publicly Listed Companies in the United Arab Emirates”. The paper has been submitted for presentation at the conference under the guidance of Dr. Henderson. The conference is to be held April 2013. The abstract of the paper is found below.
ABSTRACT:
Financial reporting is an important, crucial task for achieving and sustaining a well-organized, farsighted business. Furthermore, investor demand for relevant information and improved quality and timeliness of financial information is increasing in the face of deteriorating usefulness of traditionally reported earnings, cash flows, and equity values. Intellectual Capital (IC) is connected either directly or indirectly to recent economic, technological, managerial, and sociological developments. Thus, many accounting industry practitioners, analysts, and researchers now see IC as a driver for a firm�s long term business competitiveness and ultimately both non-financial and financial performance. However, most researchers have overlooked the negative side of IC which is referred to as Intellectual Liabilities (IL). Therefore, little research has been done on IL. Thus, the objective of the present study is to understand how Intellectual Assets (IA) and IL components influence financial performance; this understanding leads to better resource allocation which eventually promotes better firm performance. Th research is designed as an empirical study of the relationships between IA and IL disclosure and financial performance for publicly listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The research question asked is: �What are the characteristics of a new conceptual model that assists in explaining the relationships between IC disclosure and firm financial performance for companies listed on the UAE stock exchanges?� In terms of practical implications, the present study provides a framework for the relationship between IA, IL, and financial performance. In addition, the existing body of knowledge in this field, which shows conflicting opinions concerning the correlation between IC and financial performance, will be enriched as a result of the developed original framework within a new marketplace and geography thereby bringing increased intellectual attention to the critical issues defining the subject matter.