Intellectual Capital, Corporate Culture and Performance of Firms Listed on Nairobi Securities Exchange

Abstract

The broad objective of this study was to establish the moderating effect of corporate culture on the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational performance of firms listed on Nairobi Securities Exchange. The review of literature provided conceptual and empirical gaps that formed the basis of the conceptual hypotheses. Two hypotheses were deduced from general objective: Intellectual capital has a significant influence on corporate performance; corporate culture moderates the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate performance. A cross-section research design was adopted. A survey questionnaire was the main tool of data collection and was distributed to the 50 heads of human resource departments in the different firms’ period covering four financial years from 2009 to 2012. The study also utilized secondary data obtained from Capital Market Authority Statistical bulletins and Nairobi Securities Exchange Handbook 2012-2013 to collect data on financial performance (ROA, ROE, and Dividend Yield). Data were tested for reliability results showing that study dimensions were reliable, apart from task-oriented culture that had a Cronbach alpha of 0.262, thus being not considered for further analysis; thus the study relied on employee-oriented culture as a measure of corporate culture. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis and hierarchical regression respectively. Multiple regression analysis showed that intellectual capital had a significant influence on non-financial performance and no significant influence on financial measures of performance (ROA, ROE, and Dividend Yield). Test for moderation showed that the interaction term was not significant and thus, employee-oriented culture did not moderate the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate performance. The study demonstrates importance of the influence of intellectual capital on non-financial performance of firms listed on Nairobi Securities Exchange. The results show that interplay among human capital, social capital, and organization capital is important for firms listed on Nairobi Securities Exchange and that the firms should nurture the employees into sharing their knowledge by creating internal and external networks and also creating support system within the organization to retain the knowledge. Keywords: intellectual capital, corporate culture, employee-oriented culture, task-oriented, corporate performance