This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of intellectual capital research published in the Scopus database from 1956 to 2020 to trace the development of scientific activities that can pave the way for future studies by shedding light on the gaps in the field. The analysis focuses on 638 intellectual capital-related papers published in the Scopus database over 60 years, drawing upon a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer. This paper highlights the mainstream of the current research in the intellectual capital field, based on the Scopus database, by presenting a detailed bibliometric analysis of the trend and development of intellectual capital research in the past six decades, including journals, authors, countries, institutes, co-occurrence, and author’s keywords. The findings imply that intellectual capital researchers do not use broad relevant theories and findings from studies beyond their clusters. Another result is that developing nations continue to be underexplored in terms of intellectual property research due to a lack of trust representation and a lack of appropriate investigators. Finally, the data analysis identifies a number of potential research issues to be investigated regarding intellectual capital development, which serve as raw material for future research. Once again, this study provides a framework for firms to build and implement intellectual capital development plans.

Over the years, several studies have been conducted to identify the impact of various intellectual capital components on the organizational performances. However, most of these works greatly replicated the applications and uses of different intellectual capital components (human, structural, relational, social) without addressing the shortcomings related to their empowerment toward the innovation perception of the organizations. Based on this fact, we comprehensively reviewed the existing literatures that strongly influenced the innovation performance of the financial sector. Standard inclusion and exclusion criteria were used for the critical and systematic evaluation of the past studies. It identified the main limitations of intellectual capital components efficiency in the financial sector that could considerably affect their desired innovation performances in the dynamic and competitive market scenarios. In addition, a correlation was established among the organizational growth of intellectual capital components and innovation performance, leading to positive implications on intellectual capital components development.

The main function behind the conceptualization of creative accounting is maintaining the quality of financial reporting practice. This phenomenon has attracted the attention of researchers for decades, especially in the banking sector, concerning its wide implications and indications for stakeholders, investors, policy makers and competitiveness. However, the practice of creative accounting is accompanied by some undesirable implications resulting from manipulation procedures. Detailed investigations in the previous literature found limited implications of creative accounting determinants on this practice. Thus, the present study investigated the moderation impact of the audit committee in enhancing the impacts of creative accounting determinants and financial reporting quality in the context of commercial banking. A deductive research approach driven by a survey questionnaire was used as the methodology to attain the designed objectives. The analysed data contributed to providing theoretical conceptualization and practical validation of the moderation impacts of the audit committee on creative accounting determinants and financial reporting quality of the banks regarding designed advantages. In addition, the present findings showed that the audit committee highly moderates the determination of creative accounting regarding financial reporting quality in the commercial banking sector. Lastly, the present study introduces the necessity to use such corporate practice for the beneficial parties as the defense line to reduce manipulation practices and enhance the quality of financial reporting.

Creative accounting is considered to be a 21st-century phenomenon that has received increased attention after the worldwide economic crisis and budget deficits, particularly the prevention and detection of accounting manipulation. Creative accounting is a practice that influences financial indicators by using accounting knowledge and rules that do not explicitly violate accounting policies, rules, and laws. The main purpose for implementing creative accounting is to show the financial position desired by the company management; stakeholders are informed of what the management wants them to perceive. Creative accounting can be used to manipulate financial information from its correct and accurate form by exploiting existing rules or, in many cases, ignoring one or more rules. Therefore, the methodology of the present work contributes to the existing literature by systematically reviewing the impacts of creative accounting determinants on financial reporting quality, especially in the banking sector. In this review, we describe and critically analyze previous relevant works to identify and assess the relationship between the constructs addressed in the study. In conclusion, this study offers insight for academia, researchers, and practitioners on determining creative accounting practices and their influences on fraudulent financial reporting between 2015 and 2020. Lastly, the present study contributes to the existing information by conducting new research on creative accounting determinants to enhance the quality of financial reporting and, therefore, help professionals to improve practices within the profession.

The phenomenon of creative accounting has attracted the attention of researchers for decades, especially in the financial sector for its implications on the quality of financial reporting. Although several procedures have been developed by researchers and practitioners to determine any manipulation in financial reporting, the practice of creative accounting is still prevalent, resulting in poor quality financial reporting. The present study investigated the moderating role of transparency and disclosure with respect to enhancing the impact of creative accounting determinants and financial reporting quality in the context of commercial banking. A deductive research method driven by a survey questionnaire is used to examine the proposed hypotheses and attain the designed objectives. The analysed data provide a theoretical conceptualisation and practical validation for the integration of the moderator in the relationship between creative accounting determinants and financial reporting quality in banks, with significant advantages. Furthermore, the present research findings show that the degree of impact for creative accounting determinants is linked to the aspects of transparency and disclosure. Lastly, the results present concurrent evidence of the flexibility of creative accounting determinants with implications for transparency and disclosure and financial reporting quality.

The current economic trend worldwide is for an industrial economy based on tangible assets to convert into a non-tangible economy based on intellectual capital. Lately, a multidimensional view of intellectual capital and its implications on innovation performance have generated renewed research interests. Based on these facts, the relationship amongst different antecedent factors such as culture and trust on intellectual capital components was analysed. In addition, a correlation among intellectual capital components (as non-tangible assets) and innovation performance for the banking sector was established. The positivism philosophy, deductive approach and quantitative methods were used as the research methodology to accomplish the research objectives. In this process, a questionnaire survey and purposive sampling technique were used to collect the responses from 364 employees of the Iraqi commercial banks. The obtained data were analysed statistically using the SPSS v25 and AMOS v24 software. The results revealed a significant impact of culture and trust (antecedent factors) on various intellectual capital components. Furthermore, a strong connection between these antecedent factors and intellectual capital components was evidenced, confirming the study hypotheses. Interestingly, intellectual capital components were found to enhance significantly the innovation performance of the banks, leading to better competitive advantages. In addition, it provided evidence on the impacts of inter-relationships amongst human, structural and relational capitals. Consequently, the study provides academicians and practitioners valuable insights into and guidance on how developing intellectual capital enhances competitive performance, especially in the context of Iraqi commercial banks.