LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ON BRAND EQUITY IN US LISTED COMPANIES

Several research have claimed that intangible assets have a substantial influence on financial market performance. Intangible assets are a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the company, capable of creating value for all stakeholders. The intangible assets are made up of a set of generic and specific resources and skills which are also represented by the image of company. Such image is built up by a brand that is considered a symbolic attribute of a product. A brand drives a company’s competitive advantage through differentiation and positioning strategies. This is linked to brand equity to get high performance and reduce risk. Hence, brand led companies move from tangible to intangible assets leveraged by knowledge. This calls for a knowledge management view to understand the process of brand equity. By applying the knowledge management theory, the paper highlights the re-focus of companies’ activities to face with emerging challenges on corporate brand. Hence, the paper proposes three different econometrics models to examine a panel data from 2010-2020 of 180 US listed companies from COMPUSTAT and BrandFinance database. Finding suggest that managers can leverage brand equity as an intangible asset to increase company’s financial performance. This paper contributes to the existing literature on intellectual capital and knowledge management through the identification of innovative re-frame of brand equity investments and activities for business performance.