Intellectual capital and firm performance in chinese creative industry firms

Most knowledge development efforts in intellectual capital and creative industries have focused on Western economies and companies. This study develops and tests empirically a theoretical model that focuses on how intellectual capital variables influence firm performance in developing countries under the conditions of knowledge economy. Based on the literature and in-depth interviews, the authors developed 7 research hypotheses and examined empirically these hypotheses using the data collected from 168 Chinese creative industry firms by means of ¿on-site¿ survey. The findings suggest that elements of intellectual capital including human capital, structural capital, intellectual property capital and relationship capital have almost positively direct effects on firm performance. However, control variables including external environment and firm size have negatively direct impacts on firm performance.