This paper aims to investigate the extent of digital intellectual capital disclosure (DICD) through the websites of Spanish public hospitals and analyze the organizational, governance, financial, and political determinants influencing such disclosure.
A quantitative approach is applied using content analysis of Spanish public hospitals' official websites to construct a digital intellectual capital disclosure index (DICDI). Subsequently, an econometric regression model is used to examine the impact of different variables – hospital size, board gender diversity, financial performance, indebtedness, and regional political ideology – on the level of DICD. Robustness is evaluated through alternative variable specifications and standard errors clustered at the regional level.
Spanish public hospitals display a moderate and heterogeneous level of DICD, with a primary focus on structural and relational capital. Hospital size, organizational complexity, gender diversity, and regional political ideology are positively associated with disclosure levels, while financial performance and indebtedness show a non-significant relationship. These associations remain stable across robustness checks (after controlling for regional clustering effects).
The findings offer a benchmark for hospital managers to assess their disclosure practices and can inform policymakers about designing incentives to foster greater accountability for intangible assets.
Enhanced intellectual capital transparency can increase public trust and empower patients, allowing them to make more informed decisions.
This study provides one of the first comprehensive empirical analyses of the potential determinants of DICD in the Spanish public healthcare context. While this study builds upon established theoretical frameworks, its primary contribution lies in its contextual and empirical originality. By integrating multiple organizational, governance and political factors, it offers a nuanced view of hospitals' transparency strategies in a decentralized system, providing evidence that extends beyond traditional private-sector models.
