The effects of business ethics and corporate social responsibility on intellectual capital voluntary disclosure

Purpose – This study aims to examine the potential effect that business ethics (BE) in general and corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) more specifically can exert on the voluntary disclosure (VD) of intellectual capital(IC) for the ethically most engaged firms in the world.Design/methodology/approach – The research design is based on an inductive approach. As part of theglobal quantitative investigation, the authors have analyzed the impact of BE and CSR on the transparentcommunication of the IC. The data under analysis have been investigated using multiple linear regression.Findings – Based on a sample of 83 enterprises emerging as the most ethical companies in the world, theresults have revealed that the adoption of ethical and socially responsible approach is positively associatedwith the extent of VD about IC. This finding may help attenuating the asymmetry of information and theconflict of interest potentially arising with corporate partners. Hence, IC-VD may stand as an evidence of ethicaland socially responsible behaviors.Practical implications – Global and national regulators and policymakers can be involved by these resultswhen setting social reporting standards because they suggest that institutional and/or cultural factors affecttop management’s social reporting behavior in the publication of the IC information.Social implications – Direct and indirect stakeholders, if supported by ethical and socially responsiblebehaviors of the company, could assess more in detail the quality of the disclosed information concerningthe IC.