The Significance of Intangibles: A Comparative Analysis Between Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Germany and the USA

Abstract

According to the growing importance of intangible assets, the research aims to investigate the significance of intangibles for Croatian, Slovenian, Czech, German and US publicly traded companies. The analysis is focused on intangibles that meet the criteria for the recognition in financial accounts. The results of the analysis prove that in the period 2004-2008 intangibles constitute an important asset for traditional market economies, which does not result for post-transition and transition economies, despite the fact that many analyses underline their growing significance in today’s business environment. Independent t-test was used to test a difference between selected companies. A future research approach should analyze the proportion of intangibles that do not meet the criteria for their recognition and found out if transition economies actually possess a significantly lower proportion of intangibles.