This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of sector disclosure of Intellectual Capital (IC) in corporate annual reports of listed companies in Ghana. The study examines the Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD) of 25 listed companies on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) across industry sectors over a five-year period (2006-2010) through content analysis of their corporate annual reports. The study reveals that there are marginal increases in the overall average ICD levels over the five-year period for most of the industries/sectors. The banking, finance and insurance sector tend to disclose more IC in annual reports than any other industry, as there are significant differences in ICD levels of the industries on the GSE. This largely indicates that industry affiliation does affect the ICD of listed firms but not necessarily in terms of the knowledge-intensive nature of the industry.

It is apparent that the challenge with the traditional financial accounting framework is the failure to publicize the most important assets and resources of today’s business (Vergauwen et al., 2007). What has become abundantly clear in the Intellectual Capital (IC) reporting arguments so far is that intangible assets are driving value creation in today’s global economy (Dumay and Garanina, 2013). There is a growing discussion on IC and the knowledge economy more generally within the accounting literature (McPhail, 2009). This has set the tone for the discussion of IC to be situated in the general discussion of transparency in various firms and industries.

In the last decade, transparency has become a necessary mantra for both publicly listed companies and government institutions and that IC reporting is often related to this goal of enhancing the transparency of business and public institutions (Nielsen and Madsen, 2009). Bhasin (2011) asserted that market participants, practitioners and regulators alike argue that there is an important need for greater investigation and understanding of Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD) or Intellectual Capital Reporting (ICR) as the usefulness of financial information in explaining firm profitability continues to deteriorate.The disclosure of information by companies has in recent years experienced increased attention due to factors such as globalization and integration of capital markets, increased mobility of monetary and actual goods, growing competition and new dominant industries as well as the development within IT and the Internet (Bukh and Johanson, 2003).

Accounting Research and Audit Practices, Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD), Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Intellectual Capital (IC), Industry Intellectual, Capital Disclosure, Intellectual Capital Reporting (ICR), Ghana Stock Exchange.