Impact of Intellectual Capital on Firm Performance and Market to Book Value - An analysis of the extended VAICTM model on Swedish listed firms within the healthcare sector

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to research whether IC and the individual components of IC in firms, namely the relational capital, structural capital, innovation capital and human capital, contribute to an increase in financial performance and positive market reaction for listed Swedish healthcare firms listed in Stockholm OMX30 with a time-frame of 10 years from 2009 to 2018. An extended VAICTM model developed from the original VAICTM model proposed by Pulic is used as a proxy for efficient IC usage and a fixed effects regression is performed on the explanatory variables representing firm performance and market perception. Firm performance is divided by ROA and ROE representing financial performance, and ATO representing productivity. Market perception is measured by market to book value. The analysis shows varying relationships between IC and firm performance and market perception. The result suggests no significant relationship for the overall IC, whereas some of the individual components of IC were shown to improve productivity and market perception, potentially being valuable in internal decision making.