Motivated by the recent works by Lev [2001b ; 2004] and the current debate surrounding the international financial reporting standard n°38 (i.e. IAS 38) adoption related to reported intangible investment issues, this study investigates whether European firms using national generally accounting principles (hereafter, GAAP) exhibit differences while considering the relationship between firm performance and reported intangible investment. Using a four-representative-European-country (i.e. France, Germany, Spain and U.K.) dynamic data panel, we investigate whether intangible accounting numbers in these different settings can be significantly linked, during the period 1993-2003, to the following firm performance triptych: financial, operational and competitive performance. Our findings bring us towards the following three concerns: (1) Firstly, in any stock market under scope, we do find clear evidence that while constructing their investment portfolios investors adopt a short-term perspective or "myopic view" by precluding firms from reporting high intangible investment in their financial statements. (2) Secondly, we do not find any evidence that reported intangible investments regardless the national GAAPs underpin a better competitive position inside a specific market. We conclude that relationship between reported intangibles and the firms' competitive advantage (or disadvantage) should not be held constant in future research designs. (3) Finally, our results clearly support the idea that Latin accounting frameworks, while opposed to Anglo-Saxon settings, ease the relationship recognition occurring between intangibles and the firm operational performance. This last result would suggest that IAS implementation could lead to disconnect progressively operational margins from reported intangibles as their valuations are, under IFRS, overall market-oriented
