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The purpose of this paper is to compare intellectual capital disclosure in the prospectus of an initial public offering (IPO) with the intellectual capital disclosure in the subsequent annual report. The first objective was to investigate whether companies make a commitment toward intellectual capital disclosure. The second objective was to investigate whether companies report more on intellectual capital in the prospectus.

This study investigated the prospectus and annual report using a sample of 55 firms that applied for an initial listing in Belgium and The Netherlands from 2005‐2009. A coding framework of 86 items was used to perform the content analysis.

The existence of intellectual capital disclosure commitment was confirmed. Moreover, the results demonstrated that companies report more extensively on intellectual capital in their prospectus in comparison to their annual reports.

This paper documents the first study to provide empirical evidence on the existence of intellectual capital disclosure commitment. Therefore, it offers a new path for future intellectual capital disclosure research.