Globalization and advances in information technology are stepping up competition between companies, making it increasingly necessary for them to stand out from their competitors. Intangible assets such as brands, patents, public utilities and intellectual capital, for example, are singular assets, whose uniqueness allows companies to differentiate themselves from others and gain competitive advantages. In this context, innumerous authors have asserted that the generation of wealth in companies is directly related to intangible assets, as these assets are responsible for better economic performance and the generation of above-average profits. The higher presence of intangible assets not accounted for on paper can also explain the gap between the market value of a company and the value reflected in traditional accounting. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the presence of unrecorded intangible assets on the performance of companies, statistically verifying whether these assets can really generate greater value for shareholders. The results obtained from hundreds of companies in the United States are significant and show that there are important differences in performance between intangible-intensive and tangible-intensive companies. Accounting thus needs to make an effort to register these strategic assets and develop a means of reflecting them, if necessary re-adjusting its principles, conventions, norms and practices in such a way that essence take prevalence over form, because even subjectivity and the consequent difficulty in measuring intangible assets cannot stand as an obstacle to this process of evolution.
Intangible asset; Economic performance; Accounting information
