Search results

Intellectual capital (IC) is attracting increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in the private sector, while research in the public sector is still in its embryonic stage, especially in regards to local governments. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by channelling conceptual and empirical findings from the large body of IC literature.

The research investigates IC in action in the local government domain. A survey has been carried out involving both managers and politicians of all Italian local governments (ILGs) with more than 40,000 inhabitants. In order to define the constituents of each IC dimension perceived by ILGs, principal component analysis was used in investigating the results.

Results highlights how IC components are perceived in ILGs: human capital is a combination of aptitudes in pursuing target performances, sense of ownership and motivations; relational capital is a combination of values, relationships and acts; structural capital includes procedures and routines supporting the decision-making process, the ability of achieving objectives and handling changes.

While the research findings are limited due to being based on a survey in a single country, they present opportunities for future research regarding further testing of how IC is perceived in LGs in different context. The conclusion could be beneficial also for standard setters, providing a path to support the IC disclosure by LGs.

The paper contributes to a narrow strand of research – IC in LGs – adding new knowledge in “IC in action” research stream.

This study investigates the perceptions of intellectual capital (IC) among senior managers at Italian local healthcare units (LHUs) and the interrelations among IC components. It also provides a comprehensive definition of IC in the healthcare context and managerial guidance on improving IC to enhance LHU performance.

A survey was carried out to investigate perceptions among LHU senior management and identify characteristics of each primary IC component. The pilot study's results were examined using principal component analysis.

The findings illustrate senior management's perceptions of IC in LHUs and the extent to which management identifies and manages IC. A comprehensive definition of IC components in the healthcare sector is derived from these findings.

The research provides a better understanding of IC in the healthcare context and facilitates further research into how IC may be incorporated in quotidian organizational procedures. Results suggest that LHU managers should invest in increasing trust and respect and engage employees in organizational processes to provide recognition for the active role they play. Ongoing management of the three primary IC components is shown to have clear advantages, particularly on their connectivity.

The paper contributes to an increasingly important strand of theoretical research – IC in the healthcare context – and also adds new knowledge on the practical applications of IC in LHUs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate budgetary solvency (BS) as a part of the financial condition of local governments (LGs), considering that the growing demand for public services is primarily affecting this variable.

The study investigates a sample of 132 Italian LGs with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2005–2014. The authors obtain a set of indicators as proxies of BS, which serve as the dependent variable of a regression model aimed at testing several independent variables which the authors are interested in, namely, financial autonomy, current equilibrium, level of indebtedness and investments.

BS, as well as its three indicators—sustainability, flexibility and vulnerability—are positively related to financial autonomy and current equilibrium and negatively related to the level of indebtedness and investments.

To cover citizens’ demands for public services guaranteeing sound financial management, policymakers are advised to control both the balance between current revenue and expenses and the level of indebtedness while preserving financial autonomy from external sources.

This study adds fresh insight to the literature on financial health, emphasising the relevance of public financial management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible influence of financial health of local governments (LGs) on the re-election of politicians.

The study investigates a sample of 129 Italian LGs with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2008–2014, resulting in 903 observations. A regression model has been implemented, where the dependent variable refers to the probability of re-election, and different dimensions of financial health are the independent variables.

Budgetary and service-level solvency influence positively the probability of re-election of the major, while the ability of the government to generate liquidity to pay its short-term debts is not statistically relevant. Moreover, the sustainability dimension of budgetary solvency is more relevant than the flexibility and vulnerability dimensions.

To be re-elected, local politicians are advised to pay attention to and preserve the social welfare of citizens with the available resources.

This study adds fresh insight to the literature on financial health, emphasising the relevance of public financial management in the re-election of local politicians.

The purpose of this research is to undertake a bibliometric analysis of financial performance research in of higher education sector. The study examines papers over the last 2 decades and performed performance analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling and scientific mapping.

The study examines 616 documents retrieved from the Scopus database using bibliometric analysis, performance analysis and thematic clustering. The study looked at the scientific productivity of papers, prolific authors, most influencing papers, institutions and nations, keyword cooccurrence, thematic mapping, co-citations and authorship and country collaborations. VOS viewer was employed as a tool in the research to conduct the performance analysis and thematic clustering.

This study delves into the recent advancements in financial performance research within higher education, focusing particularly on the year 2023, characterized by a peak of productivity with 46 significant articles. Notable institutions contributing substantially to this discourse include the University of Sussex (UK), and Ratio Institute Stockholm (Sweden), each referenced 227 times. The United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in financial performance research, amassing 3,850 citations from 92 publications. Key journals driving this conversation include “Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice” and “The British Journal of Political Science.” The most cited study examines the impact of business-university partnerships on innovation and financial outcomes.”

This is the first study that provides a performance analysis and scientific mapping of the financial performance literature in the higher education sector. In addition, this study is the initial one to do a thorough analysis and organized representation of financial performance in the higher education sector, providing an unparalleled understanding of a hitherto uninvestigated area of academic research.

It is important to have a literature review to open any special issue as a way of introducing the state-of-the-art topics and link past research with the papers appearing in this special issue on IC in education. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This research uses the structured literature to investigate the state-of-the-art and future directions of IC literature in education. In total, 47 articles are explored including nine from this special issue.

IC in education research is concentrated in Europe and mainly addresses IC in universities. Additionally, current IC research is progressing by examining IC practices inside universities using a third-stage IC approach, with new research also concentrating on third-mission outcomes, thus there is scope to continue IC and education research beyond universities. IC in education can also expand into fifth stage IC research, which abandons the boundaries of the educational institution and concentrate on the impact of IC and education on multiple stakeholders.

Current IC in education research is too narrow and mainly investigates IC in European contexts using case study methodology. However, there is ample scope to widen research that develops new frameworks in different educational and country contexts using a wider range of research methodologies. IC in education needs to expand its boundaries so it does not lose its relevance, and thus be able to contribute to wider policy debates.

This paper presents the current state-of-the-art structured literature review of the articles investigating IC in education.

The purpose of this study is to compare of the way intellectual capital (IC) is disclosed in the websites of the universities in three European countries to assess the way universities decide to communicate IC to their stakeholders and identify potential patterns and trends. In addition, the relation between the level and the type of IC Web disclosure in universities and academic rankings as a proxy of performance is explored to reveal interrelations.

The study is based on a sample of 128 universities coming from Greece (22), Italy (58) and Spain (48). The websites of the universities are content-analysed to measure the level of IC disclosure. The IC disclosure metrics are then correlated with the academic rankings of the World Ranking.

While the level of IC disclosure among universities and among countries is not homogeneous, human capital and internal capital items are more heavily disclosed compared to external capital items in all three countries. In addition, larger universities in terms of number of students tend to disclose more on IC. Moreover, there is a positive correlation between the level of IC Web disclosure and the academic ranking that challenges the IC disclosure strategies followed by the universities.

The paper represents an innovative contribution to the existing literature as it investigates websites to assess the level of IC disclosure provided by universities in a comparative perspective. Furthermore, it analyses the relationship between the online IC disclosure and European universities’ academic rankings and provides evidence on the interaction between the IC disclosure and the ecosystem in which the universities operate contributing to the fourth stage of IC research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a new way to disclose intellectual capital (IC) in universities through their websites. Going beyond traditional tools used for intellectual capital disclosure (ICD), this study aims at identifying possible determinants of ICD via the web.

This paper analyses the institutional websites of a sample of Italian universities adapting the theoretical framework developed by Low et al. (2015) to the peculiarities of the Italian university system. Moreover, the relationship between certain explanatory factors identified in previous research and the extent of online ICD represented by two disclosure indexes was tested through an ordinary least squares regression model.

The analysis reveals the extensive use of ICD via websites, especially regarding human and internal capital, while the disclosure of external capital through this means is still limited. Internationality and online visibility both positively affect the extent of a university’s ICD.

The paper represents the first study investigating online ICD and its determinants in universities, contributing new knowledge to help answer the how and what of the matter.

The results can serve as encouragement to university managers to enhance online ICD to meet the information needs of a wider audience.

This is the first study to provide evidence about online ICD in universities and to reveal some of the possible determinants to improve this disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a citizen-centered tool for public accountability, the popular report (PR). Elaborating on previous studies and on content analysis of a sample of municipalities in the USA, this paper aims to identify the qualitative characteristics and content elements that PR should have to serve as a legitimation tool.

The study adopts a mixed methodology. After the analysis of previous studies on PR and best practices in US municipalities, a list of content elements and qualitative characteristics of PR is compared with results emerging from the content analysis of PR published by of a sample of municipalities in the USA.

The analysis reveals that the PR should embed information about the government’s sources of revenues and taxes, expenditures, cost of government services, liveability and governance of the city.

The paper offers new knowledge on reporting centered on citizens, framing the analysis in the legitimacy theory. Even though the research relates only to the US context, the results may assist standard setters in preparing guidelines for local governments to communicate financial data to citizens and stimulate further research in other contexts.

The results may encourage local governments to prepare a PR suitable to discharge accountability and gain legitimation.

This study is the first to discuss the PR within a theoretical framework, in this case, legitimacy theory. Moreover, a further novelty lays in the analysis carried out on the PRs published by US municipalities in order to derive qualitative characteristics and content elements with which the PR should comply.