Corporate Governance Structure and Intellectual Capital Disclosure: Evidence from Ghana

the main aim of this paper is to investigate the extent of the intellectual capital disclosure and the relationship between intellectual capital disclosure and corporate governance variables in Ghanaian listed firms. We tested the following independent variables comprising the various forms of corporate governance structure: board composition, dual role, size of the audit committee and frequency of audit committee meetings. A sample of 50 firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange was selected. The descriptive statistics, content analysis, and a linear regression model were performed to analyze the data. Out of the four (4) variables tested, only the frequency of audit committee meetings has a significant positive relationship in influencing the level of intellectual capital disclosure in Ghana. The result also found 74.67 percent of the selected companies disclosed intellectual capital in their annual reports. However, the extent of the intellectual capital disclosure among Ghanaian firms is still relatively low (about 4.45 percent). This result also revealed that most of the Ghanaian firms are aware of the intellectual capital disclosure, but however, they are not aware on how to measure, report and disclose this information in their annual report