Purpose – Organizational performance is increasingly grounded on knowledge-related issues. The seminal academic discussions addressing this phenomenon revolve around the concept of Intellectual Capital (IC) (e.g. Edvinsson & Malone, 1997; Sullivan, 1998). IC is typically divided to human, structural and relational capital assets possessed by an organization (e.g. Bontis, 2001; Guthrie, 2001). We expand this focus further on renewal capital (e.g. Kianto et al., 2010) entrepreneurial capital (e.g. Erikson, 2002) and trust capital (Mayer et al., 1995). There has been inconclusive evidence on the performance outcomes of possessing IC in firms. In general, IC has been seen to increase firm’s performance in various aspects, but the evidence is mixed and based on various types of measures (e.g. Bontis, 1998; Chen et al., 2006; Subramanian and Youndt, 2005; Tovstiga and Tulugurova, 2007). Therefore, to understand better the role of IC in firms’ value creation, we will analyze here empirically the effect of different IC categories on performance measures using psychometrically robust scales developed to capture the whole essence of the phenomenon. Our purpose is to provide detailed evidence on the different performance implications of IC categories in firms, and thus bring about new knowledge to the field. Design/methodology/approach – Our results are based on a survey data, collected in Finland during 2013. The data consist of 262 responses from firms with at least 100 people employed. We analyze seven different categories of intellectual capital, and examine their influence on various market and innovation performance measures. The used measures are based on multiple-item scales, developed on basis of earlier research, as well as including new measures developed by the authors. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used for the analyses by first assessing the reliability and validity of the measurement models and then the structural models to test our hypotheses. Originality/value – In this study, we examine the firm-level performance outcomes of intellectual capital. We utilize a broad set of measures for IC, including six categories of human, relational, structural, renewal, entrepreneurial, and trust capital. The first three categories are well-established and often utilized conceptualizations, while we suggest here that the latter three cover important facets of IC that should also be analyzed to get an overarching picture of the phenomenon. Our results show that the various IC categories have different implications for firms in terms of their performance. Practical implications – The results of this study help managers in firms to better understand the potentially best-performing categories of IC. Moreover, the results provide key performance outcomes for IC, which can be utilized to measure the return-on-investment of IC initiatives accurately and reliably. Thus, our findings provide the managers with a sound decision making tool regarding the investments on IC.