Milestones in the Development of Intellectual Capital Reporting

This paper reviews the accounting and management literatures relating to intellectual capital. It identifies and discusses the major milestones in the intellectual capital (IC) reporting movement and significant contributions promoting external reporting of IC. It was identified that with a view to enabling organisations provide a clear understanding of firm value creation several national and supranational institutions have produced guidelines and frameworks for externally reporting IC. In many cases regulators, the accounting profession and accounting scholars have driven these initiatives. Although IC reporting has been identified as an important aspect of reporting not only in large corporates but also in small and medium enterprises and in the not-for-profit sector the existing guidelines for reporting of IC have not been embraced by organisations. Possible future directions for IC reporting are proposed.