| Summary: | Intellectual capital has been the focus of research in the knowledge-based economy, with authors attributing its intangibles the capacity of generating value for the company and constituting competitive advantages capable of enhancing business performance. Thus, if intangibles are associated with expected returns, a positive impact on turnover, and on other key performance indicators, can be expected. This research aims to identify the impact of different intangibles on the performance and profitability of the 25 major technological companies in the world, for a four-year period analysis (2014 – 2017), including characteristics of the board of directors as proxies of human capital. In order to achieve this goal, the correlation between the intangibles and performance was assessed through Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and multiple linear regression models were utilized. Broadly, based on the theoretical models, empirical evidence has shown a negative impact of some of the intangible assets disclosed on companies’ financial position on performance. The characteristics of the board displayed a positive effect on turnover, when considered alongside disaggregated measures of intangibles, reflecting synergetic effects between the variables. The most significant contribution to performance arises from software and research and development expenses, underlining the crucial role of innovation capital in this sector. Complementarily, this study assesses whether the distribution of the intangibles varies among regions, finding it does for the variables intangible assets, goodwill, licenses and patents, size of the board of directors, software and R&D and turnover, which presented higher means for the North-American region.
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