Accounting
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Accounting
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In Germany, there is no specific IA agenda. As for France, the German government put a strong theoretical emphasis on investments favouring intangible assets developments but it seems that there is no "intangible action plan" such as in Sweden or Netherlands.
Some activities have been identified in the Accounting domain, in Research activities and within networks.
There have been recent developments concerning adoption of IASC standards. New law from 1998 aimed at making the capital markets more competitive, allow companies whose securities are publicly traded to prepare their consolidated financial statements, for domestic reporting purposes, using International Accounting Standards or US GAAP rather than their national standards.
Also, in 1998, Germany created a new, independent German Accounting Standards Committee (Deutsches Rechnungslegungsstandards Committee or DRSC), based in Berlin. This latter has implemented a working group on Intangible Assets: Arbeitsgruppe "Immaterielle Vermögenswerte" with the following members:
Project manager: Dr.
Gabi Ebbers DRSC
Chairman: Prof. Dr. Klaus Stolberg - KPMG
Members:
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Contact German
Accounting Standards Committee |
Several research groups work on intangible issues:
Fraunhofer Institute
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organisation of applied research in Germany. Several institutes within Fraunhofer are dealing with intangibles and knowledge management:
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Contact Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft |
Thomas Guenther of
the University of Technology of Dresden has conducted an empirical study
based on 132 German companies with brands. The state-of-the-art of brand
management, brand control and brand valuation have been investigated. The focus
of the study is the general perception of brands as an intangible asset and as
an investment, the organisation of brand management, the valuation of brands for
internal control purposes and the operational and strategic performance measures
for brand management. In addition, the budgeting process, the brand-related
decision making and the underlying incentive systems are investigated. This
study has been presented at the EAA'2000 Annual Congress held in Munich in March
2000.
A new survey has been undertaken in 2000
with 182 companies looking on the measurement of performance. It presents
comparisons between measuring tangible and intangible resources. Download
the survey.
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Contact Dresden
University of Technology |
IFO - Institute for Economic Research
IFO is one of the largest economic research institutes in Germany. The IFO Institute is a service-based research organisation with a three-fold orientation: to conduct economic research, to offer advice to economic policy-makers and to provide services for the research and business communities. IFO has contributed to European Commission report on The competitiveness of European industry.
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Contact IFO -
Institute for Economic Research |
Volker Klockhaus from the University of Cologne and Axel Haller also work on accounting related to intangible issues.
3. Networks and other organisations
Several resources centres and networks have been identified in Germany dealing with knowledge management and the learning organisation: