Abstract

Intangible assets have become the main sustainable value creation of companies. Specifically, those assets which remain hidden in the accounting statement due to the difficulties in identification and measuring (ie what is called intellectual capital). Voluntary information disclosed by companies on these assets can help to reduce symmetries of information and improve information transparency among stakeholders. In this sense, annual reports are the primary tool of information disclosure that companies have for provide voluntary information. In recent years, sustainability reports have become in the main means of communication as a way to legitimize the actions of companies to their stakeholders. Thus, our aim is to explore and analyze the means of communication used by companies to provide voluntary information about their hidden intangible assets. Results obtained indicate that there has been a change in corporate information policy and sustainability reports have become the mainstay to provide information voluntarily to stakeholders as well as being a good way to provide information of intangible resources.

Abstract

The extent of data disclosure related to transparency and accountability in Spanish regional governments is analyzed for the period 2013-2017. For that purpose, an index with weighting of the quality for data reutilization is used. The index is first calculated for open data portals, and then transparency portals and institutional websites are added to the assessment. Findings show that just five regional governments clearly opt for open data based transparency and accountability. Nevertheless, there is a general improvement when transparency portals and institutional websites are added to the index, mainly because of data disclosed in transparency portals. Findings show that fourteen regional governments show sincere transparency and accountability policies, five of them with open data and the remainders with transparency portals. On the contrary, four regional governments perform a sheer apparent transparency behavior, without disclosing significant data.