In this paper, we expand the value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) model by constructing a comprehensive financial capital (FC) component. Human capital efficiency is subdivided into executive (EHCE) and nonexecutive human capital efficiency (NHCE). We have sampled listed agriculture companies (LAC) in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2009 to 2018 and categorized them as high-tech (HTAC) and non-high-tech agriculture companies (NHTAC). We find that capital employed efficiency (CEE) and EHCE have a significant positive effect on corporate sustainable growth (CSG) of HTAC but no significant effect on CSG of NHTAC, while FC has a significant positive effect on both. These results suggest that companies, especially HTAC, should invest in human capital, and their executives and policymakers should develop effective knowledge management tools and begin accumulating the necessary intellectual capital to allow adaptation to their changing environment. In the spirit of the intellectual agriculture concept, we present some new ways to study the performance of agricultural companies using intellectual capital and offer suggestions that can help to modernize the industry.

Intellectual capital can not only help companies to obtain sustainable competitive advantage, but also serve as a key factor in corporate performance improvement and value creation. For knowledge-intensive and technology-intensive renewable energy companies, the effective management of intellectual capital is particularly important. However, there is a huge gap between the book value of renewable energy companies and their market value. It will be difficult to establish the most appropriate development strategy for companies by evaluating the corporate performance only based on financial indicators. Therefore, studying the value creation effect of intellectual capital will not only make new energy companies pay more attention to the intellectual capital management, but also help renewable energy companies achieve sustainable corporate performance. By choosing the listed renewable energy companies from 2010 to 2016, this paper conducts an empirical research based on the Ohlson model and use quantile regression to analyze the impacts of value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) on sustainable performance at different life cycle stages. The results confirm that increasing the VAIC creates value for enterprises. It also examines the effect of life cycle on this impact, and the result shows that it does not change the significant positive correlation with the economic sustainable performance at different life cycle quantiles. This paper also concludes that value-added human capital coefficient (VAHU) and value-added capital assets coefficient (VACA) are the most important component of intellectual capitals to economic sustainable performance at the growth stage, maturation stage, and decline stage. Thus, it is suggested that renewable energy enterprises should emphasize on corporate intellectual capital management activities and design intellectual capital management solutions specifically for a certain life cycle stage.