Various Approaches used by Researchers in the Fields of Business, Management, and Accounting in Treating Intellectual Capital

Abstract

This research aims to discuss how intellectual capital issues are treated in accounting research. This study answered research questions through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 367 peer-reviewed articles in Business Management and Accounting (BMA). A detailed search was done using the publish or perish version 8 search engine. It selected the Scopus database through the “intellectual capital” keyword. The database was filtered to articles published from 2017–2021. This study selected samples using several criteria. First, the article titles should be related to intellectual capital. After that, the article is published in a peer-reviewed journal that is not discontinued. Finally, the subject matter is BMA. Most research on intellectual capital placed this topic as an independent variable at 44.14% of the total articles. Some others used it as a systematic review (21.25%), a dependent variable (13.08%), an intervening/mediating variable (7.08%), and a moderating variable (0.27%). Meanwhile, the rest employed intellectual capital as descriptive research without conducting any testing. This research is the first to map how intellectual capital is treated in accounting research.