Relational capital disclosure, corporate reporting and company performance: Evidence from Europe

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the content of relational capital disclosure (RCD) information communicated by a sample of European listed companies. It also investigates the links between RCD and certain corporate financial performance indicators.

This research did a cross-country analysis on a sample of 80 companies and a content analysis based on 51 items inherent to the relational capital (RC) framework of mandatory and voluntary reports. An RCD index has been used in certain bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses to investigate whether RCD is positively correlated to particular indicators adopted as proxies for measuring company performance.

The results show that RCD supports statistically significant relationships with revenues, net operating cash flow and capital expenditures. In contrast, there is no statistically significant association with enterprise value.

This study evaluates the information disclosed in annual reports or other standalone reports, although companies might communicate such information using other information channels. The main caveat of this study is sample size; therefore, it could be insightful to extend this cross-country study.

The research could encourage preparers to improve the disclosure of specific items of RC and could offer useful suggestions to policymakers, for instance, to the European Commission, as it has recently announced new requirements for non-financial information reporting (Directive 2014/95/UE).

Given the crucial role of RC in company success and RCD’s importance for the decision-making process, this study provides interesting insights into the debate on RC reporting’s impacts on company performance.