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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how Japanese Financial Institutions (JFI) acquire and use company intellectual capital (IC) information and other associated intangibles information in their common structured and routine equity investment decisions and how this activity contributed to knowledge creation in the JFIs concerning knowledge of companies, markets and emotions.

Design/methodogy/approach – The research employed a multi-case design, using four JFI cases. The JFIs and their IC use were discussed in terms of Nonaka and Toyama’s ’theory of the knowledge creating firm’ (2005). The associated concepts of ‘Ba’, ‘SECI’ and ‘Kata’ were conceptually located within the internal and external order emerging in the cases and were used to analyze JFI knowledge creating behavior. Despite the limits to SECI or Kata processes noted in the cases, these concepts were valuable in analyzing the case data.

Findings – Company IC information contributed to earnings estimates and company valuation. Impressionistic and emotional information about intangibles contributed to JFI feelings and confidence in their valuation and information use. Both led to investment decisions. JFI knowledge was an important component of the key interacting and informed contexts used by JFIs to make collective sense of these different but complementary types of information in investment decision making. This created opportunities for improved disclosure and accountability between JFIs and their investee companies. Common patterns of behaviour across the JFIs were counterbalanced by variety and differences noted in JFI behaviour. These included differences in JFI investment philosophy and ‘landscape’.

Practical implication – The findings provide important insights in how JFI knowledge creating patterns could limit or progress a common language of communication between companies and markets on the subject of intellectual capital. This could impact on the quality of corporate disclosure and accountability processes. The results will be used in the context of a further development of the Disclosure of Intellectual Assets Based Management in Japan.

Originality – The paper combines ideas from the ‘knowledge creating firm’ with conventional ideas of finance, and of disclosure and accountability. This combined theoretical analysis demonstrated a novel and robust theoretical context to interpret the unique Japanese case data, and the distinctive empirical patterns emerging from it.