A meta-study of intellectual capital and firm performance: When the whole is more than the sum of its parts

The empirical evidence on the causal relationship between intellectual capital and organisational value has often provided mixed results. The objective of this article is to examine within a meta-analysis framework the relevant research literature of the period 2003-2013. The basic tenet is that combining data from a series of well-conducted studies may provide a more precise estimate of any underlying trends than any individual study. The mixed-mode aggregation of original findings presented herein includes the extraction, grouping, and formatting of such findings and the calculation of frequency effect sizes. Continuous averaging is used both in grouping the data into a small number of classes and in rounding-up the calculations so that only major trends may emerge. The results of the meta-study indicate that intellectual capital as a whole has a uniformly strong positive effect on firm performance while its constituents are significantly lagging in this respect.