Westpac wins Knowledge Capital Reporting Award
Westpac was the first Australian company to win a Knowledge Capital Reporting Award at June's Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA) presentations in Melbourne. The award recognises the growing importance of knowledge capital to Australian organisations and is inspired by SKE's Guiding Principles on Extended Performance Management (Draft). SKE's panel of experts judged the nominations.
The award encourages organisations to report on three areas of knowledge capital: relational; structural; and human capital. By emphasising the need to measure and report knowledge capital, the ARA encourages companies to demonstrate "a broadening approach to accounting for organisational performance". Including information about the management of knowledge capital in annual reports is an important step forward for establishing intangibles as a strategic priority within Australian organisations.
The ARA expects that the first year of knowledge capital reporting will provide a broad introduction to benchmarking the practice, but will encourage more comprehensive reporting in future.
David Hodes, CEO, The TOC Centre of Australia, represented the ARA on the panel. The SKE judges included:
- Professor Roger Simnett, Head of School of Accounting, UNSW
- Nick Ridehalgh, Partner, PwC
- Professor James Guthrie, Discipline Convenor, University of Sydney
- Andrew Gale, Partner, Deloitte
- Christina Boedker, Director, SKE, Lecturer, School of Accounting, UNSW
- Warwick Watkins, Director General, NSW Department of Lands
About the Australasian Reporting Awards
The Australasian Reporting Awards is an independent non-for-profit organisation promoting improvements in the standards of financial and business reporting in Australia. It provides an opportunity for organisations to benchmark their reports against the ARA-set best-practice criteria.
Learn more about the Australasian Reporting Awards
Download the Australian Guiding Principles on Extended Performance Management (Draft)