Examining relationship between ownership structure and performance of intellectual capital in the stock market of Iran

The subject of government downsizing and privatization is one of the most important issues of today Iran’s economy. The agency and public choice theories show that private ownership is superior to governmental ownership and privatization will lead to better performance. This research examines the relation between ownership structure as a measuring criterion of corporate governance and performance of intellectual capital as one of the variables to create competitive advantage and efficiency. Also, the research will answer to the question that to what extent the reformation of the type of ownership on companies and privatization affects the development strategies of organizations in order to achieve greater effectiveness in the performance of intellectual capital. In this regard, information of 80 companies listed in Tehran stock exchange in the period of 2003-2009 was studied. To measure intellectual capital of companies, the Pulik’s model has been used. The results of hypothesis tests, using simple and multiple linear regression, indicate that the presence of institutional investors decrease the performance of intellectual capital in the companies; also in private ownership, corporate investors increase the performance of companies’ intellectual capital and managerial investors decrease the performance of companies’ intellectual capital. Keywords: Corporate governance; Ownership structure; Privatization; Intellectual capital performance.