Intellectual Capital and Firm Performance in German-Speaking Countries

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the effect of intellectual capital on firm performance in German-Speaking countries using the VAIC coefficient developed by Pulic. Quantitative data are collected from German, Austrian and Swiss listed companies between 2012 and 2017, which yielded to a total sample of 509 observations and 90 cross-sectional units across all industries except the financial industry. Findings from the empirical analysis indicate that intellectual capital has a positive effect on the firm performance in the same year, but an insignificant effect on the firm performance in the following year. After splitting the VAIC coefficient into its three components human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency and capital employed efficiency - the analysis shows that human capital has a positive effect on firm performance in the same year. Besides this, the structural and financial capital have no effect on most of the firm performance measures in the same as well as in the following year. Last but not least, there exist a negative moderating effect of human capital on the relationship between financial capital and firm performance and a positive moderating effect of structural capital on this relationship. Overall, those findings suggest that the whole intellectual capital as well as the human capital as part of it are the most important resources in order to increase firm performance in German-Speaking countries.