Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between firms’ intellectual capital (IC), financial performance (FP) and market value (MV) as well as the relationship between ownership concentrations on IC performance. Design/methodology/approach: A large sample of non-financial listed firms belonging to 14 countries in Western Europe, for the period between 2004 and 2015, was investigated using the GMM system (1998) dynamic estimator and the effect of lagged explanatory variables on firm’s FP and MV. Findings: The results reveal that IC is an important resource for firms’ value creation. Human capital is found to be a key factor of firms’ wealth. Results show that capital employed efficiency positively impacts on firms’ FP in the short run. The impact of IC components on firms’ MV may not be immediate. The structural capital positively affects firms’ FP in the long run. Also, the results reveal that ownership concentration and owners’ management involvement constrain firms’ IC performance. Originality/value: The current study contributes to IC research by exploring a large sample of firms across countries in Western Europe using econometric modeling. Considering that the effect of IC on firms’ FP needs time to be realized, thus to be measured, the effect of lagged explanatory variables on performance was tested, using dynamic panel estimators, specifically the GMM system (1998) dynamic estimator.

This paper seeks to analyse whether the capital structure decisions of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are closer to the assumptions of Trade-Off Theory or to those of Pecking Order Theory. We use a sample of SMEs located in the interior region of Portugal, using the LSDVC dynamic estimator as method of estimation, the empirical evidence obtained allows us to conclude that the most profitable and oldest SMEs resort less to debt, which corroborates the forecasts of Pecking Order Theory. SMEs, with greater size, resort more to debt, corroborating the forecasts of Trade-Off Theory and Pecking Order Theory. In addition, SMEs adjust noticeably their current level of debt towards the optimal debt ratio, which corroborates what is forecast by Trade-Off Theory. Therefore, this paper enhances that Trade-Off and Pecking Order Theories are not mutually exclusive in explaining the capital structure decisions of SMEs. The results suggest that younger and smaller SMEs should be object of public financing support, when the internal financing is clearly insufficient to fund those firms’ activities.

Based on various panel models, we study the profitability determinants of Portuguese service industries. The results obtained show that profitability is persistent over time, and that for larger companies with greater growth, a lower level of debt and lower level of fixed assets are more profitable. Considering the results obtained, we can conclude that diversification of activities and motivation as well as the tendency to innovate contribute positively to increased profitability in Portuguese service industries, whereas the need to pay off debt charges periodically harms profitability. The government would be well advised to create special credit channels that would permit the greater growth of Portuguese service industries, especially those most inclined to innovate.