Investigating the relationship between intangible assets and financial performance of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between intangible assets and the financial performance of the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Therefore, the present study is a practical and quasi-experimental research. Totally 134 companies for the 12-year period (1380 to 1391) were classified and examined in four categories using available databases.
Intangible assets also was divided into two categories; registered and unregistered intangible assets. We used a few proxies for calculation of intangible assets. The results of the partial correlation coefficients and hierarchical regression test with regard to the control variables showed that there is a significant relationship between intangible assets and financial performance of the companies. In some cases, there is a positive and in others a negative sign relationship. The intensity of this relationship for unregistered intangible assets is stronger that registered intangible assets. The most significant positive correlation is between ROA and Tobin-Q, and then between markets over book value and net income respectively. Also, the net income measure was strongly associated with intangible assets among the other measures.