Intellectual capital is a vital resource for enterprises in the era of knowledge economy. The core competitiveness of enterprises has been steadily transferred from traditional factories and machines to intellectual capital. The enterprises of the future will undeniably be knowledge-intensive enterprises and those which master the core technology will acquire market dominance. Since the proposal of the concept of intellectual capital by Galbraith in 1969, an increasing number of scholars have conducted exhaustive research on intellectual capital to seek for the growth point of enterprise value. However, scholars of the past focused on the evaluation of intellectual capital and there was not much research on how intellectual capital affects the formatioat intellectual capital not only creates value appreciation for itself but also brings enterprise value appreciation from the aspects of opern of enterprise value. Taking intellectual capital as the starting point, this paper, through the study of the characteristics and formation processes of intellectual capital, reveals thation, accumulation, factors and ways of creating enterprise value of intellectual capital.
This paper considers listed Chinese companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as research objects, selects 2261 sets of effective panel data of the companies from 2011–2017, and empirically analyzes the effect of intellectual capital on enterprise value. Firstly, this thesis reviews and sorts pertinent research on intellectual capital and enterprise value in China and other countries, defines the connotation of intellectual capital and enterprise value, presents the components of intellectual capital, and lays a foundation for the construction of a theoretical model. Secondly, the influence of intellectual capital on enterprise value is analyzed theoretically, and the research hypothesis is put forward. Thirdly, this paper examines intellectual capital from three aspects viz. Human capital, structural capital and customer capital, and selects material capital, profit rate and firm size as control variables. Using the factor analysis method, the comprehensive indicators of the enterprise value of 323 listed companies are obtained. Considering these comprehensive indicators as the dependent variables and calculating through value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) method, a multiple linear regression model is constructed to carry out empirical research on the effect of various factors of intellectual capital on enterprise value. Through empirical research, it is determined that human capital does not play a significant role in promoting enterprise value, while structural and customer capitals have a significant effects on enterprise value. Finally, based on the results of empirical analysis, this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for strengthening the management of enterprise intellectual capital.
Through the current study, we can deduce that intellectual and material capitals can jointly create enterprise value. However, the value of human capital in most enterprises is underestimated. Consequently, enterprises should focus on the transformation from human resources to human capital, increase the cultivation of employees' work ability and innovation ability, and create greater value for enterprises.