The Intellectual Capital and the Relevance of Non-Financial Information About Innovation in the Spanish Automotive Sector from an Accounting Perspective: A Proposal of an Indicator

Our research on the relevance of non-financial information considers to aspects: one that requires more complete and adequate information on intangibles or Intellectual Capital (IC); and another concerned with the today’s main accounting conceptual frameworks, to which a certain rigidness is attributed in terms of recognizing intangibles in financial areas that can lead to the financial information not being useful for those who use it. Given the complexity of IC, we concentrate on the information provided on websites of automobile component manufacturers in the Spanish automotive sector. We’ve designed an indicator for the innovation disclosure intensity (I3) and a classification of the activities carried out by these companies (UFPE). Both items are crossed with the ratio ROA and Cash-Flow from total assets (Self-financing Capacity). We found statistically significant evidence that companies with lower I3 have worse ROA and Self-financing Capacity ratios.