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.