Study On Intangible Capital Accounting

It has been widely accepted that the value of enterprises and the growth of socio-economic is mainly driven by intangible capital in the knowledge economy area. As a factor of production, the intangible capital has drawn great interest to many economists, and a large number of research results about it have been done. But as an information system,accounting hasn't reflected and supervised the intangible capital effectively in the age of knowledge economy. Therefore, it is significant both in theory and practice field to do some research on the intangible capital accounting, explore and build a reasonable theoretical structure and method system for it.Based on the attribute of owners' equity of intangible capital, this thesis discusses the theoretical basis and structure of intangible capital accounting; it also studies the recognition, measurement, recording and information disclosure of intangible capital. This paper is organized into eight parts: Chapter 1 is the introduction. It describes the background and reasons of the research, defines some relative conceptions of intangible capital, reviews the theories about it and proposes the goals, ideas and methods of this study; Chapter 2 describes the theoretical basis of intangible capital. In this chapter, several theories are discussed which include the theory of firms'nature, the theory of stakeholder and the theory of intangible capital circulation, it also explains the inner logical relationships between these theories and intangible capital accounting; Chapter 3 describes the theoretical structure of intangible capital accounting. This chapter discusses mainly about the logic starting point for the theoretical study and the building idea of the theoretical structure of intangible capital accounting, as well as the hypotheses, goals, qualitative characteristics of accounting information and elements of intangible capital accounting; Chapter 4 is about the recognition of intangible capital. This chapter expounds some theories about the recognition of intangible capital, proposes the premises and the"colorful mode"for the recognition of intangible capital; Chapter 5 is about the measurement of intangible capital. The theoretical structure, connotation, principles, mode and methods for the measurement of intangible capital have been discussed in this chapter; Chapter 6 is about the recording of intangible capital. It analyses the differences in recording, account designing and accounting treatments of intangible capital in the core level, and it discusses the recording of intangible capital in the loose level; Chapter 7 is about the information disclosure of intangible information. This chapter explores the standards and contents of the information disclosure, proposes some improvement suggestions for the information disclosure, and it discusses the principles and the two modes for information disclosure of intangible capital, it also analyses the information disclosure of intangible capital in both core and loose level; Chapter 8 is the conclusions and prospects of this study.The main contents and viewpoints of this thesis are as follows:(1) The theoretical significance of building the theoretical system of intangible capital accounting is that it is benefit to improve the theory and the method of accounting continually, and it satisfies the needs for changing the generation mechanism of accounting information. While its practical significance is that it is the objective requirements for us to develop the knowledge economy, and it is necessary for our country to fulfill the conception of scientific development and realize the sustainable development of economy and improve the incentive mechanism of enterprise.(2) The theory of firms'nature has laid the basis for enterprises to operate lawfully as a corporate entity which is material capital and intangible capital. The classic economics and neo-classic economics only pay attention to drive effect on the creation of enterprise value by the factors of material capital when describe the nature of enterprise. The analysis on the nature of enterpise based on transaction cost is the original germination of intangible capital accounting's production factors. The confirmation of intangible capital's factors refers to the resource-based and enterprise competence theory, the enterprise relationship theory, the social capital theory and the moral capital theory. These theories confirm the factors of intangible capital, including human capital, knowledge capital, intellectual capital, capacity capital, brand capital, exclusive technology capital, relationship capital and moral capital.(3) The theory of stakeholder provides corresponding theoretical supports for changing the generation mechanism of accounting information from supply-orientation to demand-orientation. Under the demand-orientation mechanism, the stakeholders'individual demand for accounting information decides that they will pay great attention to the information about intangible capital; moreover, the enterprises have the inner motivation to provide the information about intangible capital.(4)"The integration of internal and external factors of the system"is the logic starting point of the study on theoretical structure of intangible capital accounting, and it establishes the logic relationships among the formation parts of intangible capital accounting theory.(5) The hypotheses of intangible capital accounting gives the former hypothesis a new connotation based on complying with it which includes entity hypothesis, going concern hypothesis, accounting period hypothesis and monetary unit hypothesis. The goal of intangible capital accounting is the"view of decision making availability", that is, to provide useful information about intangible capital for stakeholders. The cost-benefit is a constraint condition for the qualitative characteristics of intangible capital accounting information. The first level is demand availability, the second level is decision-making availability, and the third level is the relativity and effectiveness. In the author's opinion, intangible capital can be divided into two categories: explicit intangible capital and implicit intangible capital. The factors of explicit intangible capital include land tenure right capital, intellectual property right capital, franchise right capital and operation capacity capital while the factors of implicit intangible capital include brand capital, relationship capital, moral capital and basic structure capital.(6) The recognition of intangible capital is based on the"colorful mode"of accounting recognition. Under this mode, intangible capital can be divided into three levels, including the core, the close and the loose level. Intangible capital in the core level includes land tenure right capital, intellectual property right capital, franchise right capital and operation capacity capital. Intangible capital in the close level includes brand capital and relation ship capital. Intangible capital in the loose level includes moral capital and basic structure capital.(7) The measurement of intangible capital is a process of recording and reporting the units and amount of the intangible capital object by choosing the factors of it and a proper measurement attribute and using relative measurement methods. The choosing of measurement unit for intangible capital should not be restricted to one single monetary unit, and we can adopt diversified measurement units. The choosing of measurement attribute for intangible capital should be emphasized on fair value measurement attribute. Also, the author proposes the present value measurement method and the cumulative period abnormal return method on the basis of analyzing the measurement methods of human capital value and intellectual capital value. The first method includes the measurement method based on the value of enterprise and the present value of abnormal return on equity method. In the author's opinion, the cumulative period abnormal return method is a realistic choice for the measurement of intangible capital value by comparing the three methods.(8) The recording in the core level intangible capital includes two aspects: account design and accounting process while the recording in the close and loose level intangible capital can be reflected in the memorandum book.(9) The information disclosure of intangible capital should comply with the following principles: cost-benefit, voluntary disclosure, full-disclosure, coordination and essentiality. The ideal information disclosure mode of intangible capital should be the"statements and notes"mode and the independent reporting mode. The"statement and notes"mode adds some columns to reflect the information of the intangible capital in the core level based on traditional accounting statements and notes. The independent mode uses an independent statement to reflect the information of the intangible capital in the core level. The two information disclosure modes of intangible capital resolve the problem of the compatibility between intangible capital accounting information and accounting information system. There are some significant differences between the information disclosure in the close and loose level and the traditional accounting such as premise, pattern, means, and contents. It resolves the problem of the inherent characteristics of intangible capital information disclosure.The intangible capital accounting is an innovative study field. This thesis just explores the theoretical system of intangible capital accounting.