2.1. An Overview of Intangible Asset Research
In 2006, Chinese Accounting Standards for Enterprises No. 6 has made clear the definition of intangible asset: it is an enterprise owned or controlled non-monetary asset, with no identifiable physical forms. However, some scholars still give a new definition of intangible asset from different perspectives. Barth, Kasznik & Mcnichols took intangible assets as an important part of the corporate overall value, which would highly influence the incomes of the companies (Barth, Kasznik & Mcnichols, 2001). Kaplan & Norton noticed the predominant value of intangible assets and regarded it as the former existence of the intangible outcomes (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Mao investigated the value of intangible asset from the perspective of value creation, and explained that intangible asset is the source of corporate value creation, including enterprise innovation, the value of non-material forms of organizational design and human resources practices, which is highly concerned with its exploring ability, organizing capital and human capital (Mao, 2001). By analyzing detailed information about intangible asset of listed companies, Shao studied each kind of intangible asset has different effects on corporate accounting value between high-tech industry and non-high-tech industries (Shao, 2006).
Internet asset is an important part of intangible assets. However, there is no official definition of it. Tang referred that Internet asset was the accumulated resource from the company investment expected to bring profit. Internet asset consists of software, web sites, web users, visibility, access volume and brand image, etc. Meanwhile, he concluded the main features of Internet asset: Firstly, Internet asset exists based on internet environment and technology; secondly, a variety of Internet assets can be re-combined to form the Internet asset group; thirdly, it is accumulated resource from companies’ investment (Tang, 2011). So, this paper regards all kinds of Internet assets as an Internet asset group, and attempt to find a proper way to evaluate it.