CEO Characteristics and Intellectual Capital Effectiveness: Empirical Evidence from the UK

Abstract

Intellectual capital has been widely studied in the context of broader corporate governance structures. There is little empirical research on CEO relationships. Nevertheless, CEOs have a great responsibility to leverage the intellectual capital that their employees bring to their organisations. Given this gap, this study examines the impact of CEOs on improving a company's intellectual capital. In this study, CEOs are represented by dual CEO status, nationality, gender, seniority, income and ownership, while the Intelligence Value Added Score measures intellectual capital. All data are collected from the annual and yearly accounts of the companies and analysed by descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis after regression diagnosis. The results show that CEOs have a significant impact on intellectual capital. The study therefore concludes that CEO characteristics are a key factor in the intellectual capital of UK firms. However, these results are limited to listed financial and non-financial services companies and the control variables used. Furthermore, this study establishes the relationship between CEOs and intellectual capital, and further research is needed on how to make the necessary improvements.