Analysis of the influence of intangible assets on the performance of Brazilian companies

Abstract

Purpose – The study aims to analyze the relationship between intangible assets and the economic performance of Brazilian public companies. Design/methodology/approach – We calculated the Degree of Intangibility (DI) to segregate companies into two groups: intangible-intensive and tangible-intensive in a sample of Brazilian public companies from 2012 to 2016. We applied the Mann-Whitney test to verify whether there were statistically significant differences between these two groups of companies concerning the Operating Margin, Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Market Value Added and Earning per Share. Findings – The results show that intangible-intensive companies presented higher economic performance in most part of the indicators and years analyzed. In addition, we did not find significant results for Earnings per Share, although the signed rank sum mean values of intangible-intensive are higher than tangible-intensive companies in most part of the years. Practical implications - The findings seek to contribute to discussions about the importance of intangible resources as determinants of competitive advantages and reflecting in higher economic performance, and thus increasing market value. In this sense, investments in intangible resources can be applied in adopting initiatives in markets and definition of strategic positions in companies. Finally, our study seeks also to contribute to capital markets since the relationship between intangible assets and economic performance can be useful in detecting investment opportunities. Originality/value – Previous studies analyzed the relationship between intangible assets and economic performance with other periods and samples. We also measured different proxies for economic performance as Operating Margin, Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Market Value Added and Earnings per Share.

Nível de Intangibilidade dos Ativos e Valor de Mercado: uma Análise nas Empresas de Capital Aberto da América Latina

“…Portanto, quanto maior o NI, maior será a participação de ativos intangíveis de uma empresa em relação ao valor dos ativos tangíveis (Aguiar et al, 2021;Perez & Famá, 2015). Várias pesquisas têm utilizado tal índice para mensurar o NI, sendo relacionados a investimentos, inovações científicas e tecnológicas, e a criação de valor (Medrado et al, 2016).…”

“…Em seu artigo os autores encontraram que alguns aspectos do capital intelectual de fato melhoram a produtividade, e, consequentemente, geram valor para a empresa, porém existem também fatores desse tipo de ativo que não são tão efetivos. Aguiar et al (2021) analisaram a relação entre o uso intensivo de ativos intangíveis e o desempenho econômico das empresas de capital aberto no Brasil. Os resultados mostram que um melhor desempenho dos ativos intangíveis está atrelado ao uso mais intensivo de intangíveis.…”