Intellectual Capital Information Disclosure And Analyst Rating

In the age of knowledge economy,intellectual capital has increasingly become an important force for creating corporate value and competitive advantage.As an important information intermediary in the capital market,securities analysts mainly perform investment analysis on companies.It is important for analysts to have more comprehensive and relevant information related to corporate value creation activities.Obviously,the intellectual capital information disclosed by enterprises should be the information that analysts focus on.Although many literatures have carried out a series of studies on the relationship between intellectual capital information disclosure and corporate performance as well as corporate value,there are few literatures discussing the relationship between intellectual capital information disclosure and analyst behavior.The research on whether intellectual capital information disclosure can lead analysts to follow up or attract their attention and further affect analysts' investment rating on disclosure companies will undoubtedly enhance our understanding of the relationship between intellectual capital information disclosure and analyst behavior,and also help us put forward suggestions for improving the efficiency of capital market operation from the perspective of information disclosure and analyst.This article takes the Shanghai-Shenzhen A-Shares high-tech listed company in 2011-2013 as the research object,and conducts both theoretical discussions and empirical tests on the relationship among intellectual capital information disclosure,analyst following and analyst rating.On the theoretical level,this paper is based on information asymmetry theory,signalling theory,efficient markets hypothesis and other classic information disclosure theories to discuss the direct mechanism of intellectual capital information disclosure on analyst following as well as on analyst rating,and discuss the mediating effect of analyst following on the relationship between intellectual capital information disclosure and analyst rating.On the empirical level,this paper uses the China's Listed Companies Intellectual Capital Information Disclosure Index made by the Fuzhou University Intellectual Capital Information Disclosure Group to measure the disclosure level of intellectual capital information,and uses a variety of empirical tools such as multiple regression analysis,Bootstrap method,and mediation effect test to empirically examine the relationship among various types of intellectual capital(the total intellectual capital,human capital,and organizational capital)information disclosure,analyst following and analyst rating.In addition,this paper uses a variety of robustness test strategies including substitution of main variables and two-stage regression to conduct multi-dimensional verifications of the empirical findings of the text.Finally,this paper draws the following main conclusions:(1)The disclosure level of various types of intellectual capital information has a positive effect on analysts' rating;(2)The higher the disclosure level of various types of intellectual capital information,the more analysts follow up.(3)Analyst following has played a significant mediating role in the relationship between various types of intellectual capital information disclosure and analyst ratings.Based on the research conclusions,this article also proposes corresponding policy recommendations for companies,analysts and regulatory authorities.For example,the regulatory authorities should gradually issue rules related to intellectual capital information disclosure to guide companies in the disclosure of intellectual capital information;analysts should improve their ability to interpret information especially on intellectual capital information;companies should actively disclose more intellectual capital-related information to attract more analysts' attention and improve analysts investment rating on them.