تاثیر بازده سرمایه فکری بر عملکرد بانک های تجاری: شواهدی از ایالات متحده  The impact of the Intellectual Capital Efficiency on Commercial Banks Performance: Evidence from the US

1. Introduction Intellectual Capital (IC) plays an important role in an organisation’s performance. It represents distinctive characteristics that, ceteris paribus, can determinate the success or failure of an organisation relative to its peers (see, among others, Pulic, 1998; de Pablos, 2003; El-Bannany, 2008). Thus, it is not surprising that over the last decades, many researchers from different disciplines (particularly, management, accounting and finance) have devoted substantial attention to IC, examining it from different viewpoints and for various research purposes. While several studies (e.g., Stewart, 1998; Roos et al., 1997; Bontis, 1998; Wu and Tsai, 2005) have defined IC from a theoretical perspective, others have developed effective measures of IC-based performance (Stewart, 1998; Pulic, 2000), exploring the relationship between IC efficiency and some key characteristics of firms, industries and regions (ElBannany; 2008; Liang et al., 2011; Al-Musalli and Ku Ismail, 2012). Finally, a third strand of literature (which includes Chen et al., 2005; Firer and Williams, 2003; Chen et al., 2014; Curado et al.,2014; Janošević et al., 2014 among others) has empirically investigated the relationship between firm IC efficiency and financial performance. However, although many studies of firm IC exist, empirical evidence regarding the contribution of IC efficiency to firms’ financial performance remains confined to certain sectors and geographical areas (Mention and Bontis, 2013). In particular, there appear to be no studies related to bank IC from the US, despite the fact that the US banking system is of notable interest for its size and the role it plays in global economic growth. Indeed, according to OECD data, total assets managed by US banks were $12,610 billion in 2011, a very high value, especially compared with values recorded in the same year by other countries with bank-oriented financial systems, for example, Germany ($11,625 billion) and Japan ($11,651 billion).