Summary
Cooperative banking, as organizations with singularities within the Spanish financial system, encompass intangible assets with specific characteristics. Co-operative values, capital structure, personnel’s attitudes, or selection and training practices, provide the credit co-operative with specific features that deserve careful investigation. Thus, competitive advantages can be better developed and management can access further, more relevant information for decision making.
Through a case study and a Delphi method, in this thesis an attempt is made to identify the singularities of human capital in credit co-operatives. The conceptual framework used is based on well-established models of intellectual capital accounting and reporting. By identifying, measuring and analyzing intangible human assets in a credit co-operative, this thesis helps to improve, from a financial point of view, the understanding of the key role of intangible assets in the real value of an organization. The singularities of the credit-cooperative sector imply that employees are keener to develop strong organizational cultures, empowerment is emphasized and typically ‘make’ human resource policies are applied. Therefore, this investigation can provide insightful, real-life examples of how and why intellectual – and especially human – capital is so relevant and deserves a prominent position in comprehensive accounting reports (i.e. reports that go beyond the traditional accounting of tangible assets).