Intellectual Capital as driver for controlling managers' performance : an innovative approach

The purpose of the paper is to analyse how Intellectual Capital (IC) of contemporary companies can be used as management control tool, by proposing it as a driver for sport and financial performance from a value creation perspective. Through a quantitative method with an empirical application, the research investigates the football industry. The IC of professional football clubs has been identified in three components: the first team players, the brand and the right of qualification for the competition on sporting merit. The outcomes of the new model based on IC enhancement allow defining a new use of it as management control tool and a driver for clubs' managers, overcoming the traditional models of traditional objective functions, which do not consider the managers' role.

Furthermore, the new objective function, defined by the research, allows managers to make strategic decisions finalized to achieve clubs success in compliance with ownership aims. Therefore, this study provides a control tool and a driver for managers' performance that can be used by company ownership. [Publishers' text].