Ownership structure and intellectual capital: evidence from the GCC countries

Intellectual capital (IC) has become a vital indicator of firms' ability to manage their assets to create long-term competitive advantage by increasing the percentage of knowledge-based investments. Developing countries such as the Gulf cooperation council (GCC) are currently emphasising their diversification efforts on transforming their countries into knowledge economies. This research considers ownership structure as part of the governance mechanisms within a firm that would contribute in explaining variations in the level of IC disclosure in the GCC. Accordingly, this paper set out to investigate the relationship between ownership structure and intellectual capital in GCC listed firms by developing a regression model using IC index as a dependent variable, ownership structure as an independent variable, and several control variables such as corporate governance, company age, size and financial leverage. It concluded that there is a significant and negative relationship between ownership structure (director's ownership, managerial ownership, institutional ownership, government ownership and foreign ownership) and ICL.