The intellectual capital performance of the Japanese banking sector

The performance of economic entities has been a research matter even in the ancient world. The human “genius” has been recognized as a vehicle for certain valuable capabilities and as the critical enabler of transforming processes. But it has not been considered as an intellectual capitalizator or intellectual asset. This has happened recently in the promising field of intellectual capital and its related philosophy of knowledge management, although the related research status quo is still in its infancy. Applies the VAIC^TM method in order to analyze the data of Japanese banks for the financial period 1 April 2000‐31 March 2001. Analyzes the intellectual or human (HC) and physical capital (CA) of the Japanese banking sector and discusses their impact on the banks’ value‐based performance. Focuses on the actual status of HC and CA capital and its predictive, discriminative and integrative impact on the “intellectual” added value‐based performance situation. Confirms the existence of significant performance differences among the various groups of Japanese banks but also the differences between the Japanese and some European banks (Greece and Austria).