The Examination of Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Financial Performance According to the Modulating Role of Competitive Advantage

Intellectual capital is a new matter that theoretically is suggested in the few recent years. This unobservable source as one of the companies’ increasing sources and a key capital in the development of entrepreneurship has been offered. Today, the necessity of development and management of intellectual capital has been converted into a serious necessity at the macro level and in the business arena. Thus, mangers need to measure their efforts of optimum use of intellectual capital on their own organization. Therefore, this research examined the relationship among the variables of intellectual capital and financial performance as well as competitive advantage in the 45 companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange through 225 answered questionnaires from 300 sent questionnaires by managers. Additionally, data related to the performance was collected from information of companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange and finally, data analysis and hypotheses testing were done using structural equations and factor analysis was done using LISREL software as well as multiple regressions. The results of the research indicate that there is a positive significant relationship between intellectual capital and competitive advantage, but competitive advantage does not modulate the impact of intellectual capital on the financial performance.