This course seeks to understand intangible asset issues from a management accounting, financial accounting and auditing perspective. The gap between the market value of firms and the capitalisation of their assets in the balance sheet highlights the value that investors are prepared to attribute to the "intangible resources" of many organisations (such as financial service, consulting, software development and e-commerce companies). The value generating potential of such organisations is attributed to resources, and competencies in managing these resources, that the traditional accounting system is often both unable and unwilling to represent in explicit financial terms. Based on the premise that long term sustainable value creation is best achieved from collaborative organisational practices and transparency among all stakeholders, this course aims to identify these "intangible resources" and to examine their role in achieving superior financial performance. The course examines how intangible assets are treated from a financial accounting perspective given International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and offers a critical understanding of measurement and auditing challenges. Additionally, the course incorporates performance measurement frameworks that seek to represent intangible resources often not captured within conventional accounting systems (for example, the Balanced Scorecard and other methodologies that seek to meaningfully measure and evaluate intangibles). The types of intangible resources captured within such frameworks and how they are measured is examined also.
