scholarly journals The Determinants of Forward-looking Disclosures in Interim Reports for Non-financial Firms: Evidence from a Developing Country

Author(s):  
David Mathuva

This paper examines the determinants of the forward-looking disclosures (FLD) in the interim financial reports (IFRs) of non-financial firms listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). Data were collected from a total of 91 firm-year observations for the mid interim periods between 2009 and 2011. A FLD score was developed for each firm in the sample based on the firm’s disclosure of forward-looking statements in its IFR. The results indicate that firms with higher debt, better performance, higher capital investment and with more concentration of foreign investment tend to have more FLDs in their IFRs. Conversely, cross listed firms are associated with lower FLDs, implying that cross listed firms provide lower forward-looking information compared to non-cross listed firms. Results show a high degree of FLD for better performing firms and firms with higher financial risk. This study contributes to literature by providing evidence to which financial reporting incentives contribute to FLDs in a developing country where enforcement is weak. As a conclusion, the paper recommends firms to provide comprehensive FLDs in future to effectively mitigate informational asymmetries between the management and owners of the firms, especially firms with more concentrated foreign ownership. 

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5563
Author(s):  
Hsin-Yi Chi ◽  
Tzu-Ching Weng ◽  
Guang-Zheng Chen ◽  
Shu-Ping Chen

This paper investigates the effect of political connections on the association between family firms and conservative financial reporting. While family firms have incentives to reduce agency and litigation-related costs by means of conservative reporting, firms with political connections tend to have opaque financial reporting, which enable them to engage in rent-seeking activities. Using data for Taiwanese listed firms between 1996 and 2012, the final sample observations were 13,877 firm-year observations from a population of 21,393 firm-year observations. We found that political connections weaken the positive relationship between family ownership and conservative financial reporting. This suggests that politically connected family firms make fewer demands for conservative financial reporting. This study contributes to the literature on how political connections affect the family owners’ reporting incentives. Policy makers may consider political connections as an essential factor with respect to establishing governance practice in family firms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 965-984
Author(s):  
Unity Maqeda Putsai ◽  
Msizi Mkhize

The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of company attributes on compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The study used a sample of 46 listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) covering the period from 1993 to 2017. With an average compliance level of 88.21304, it is concluded that South Africa’s listed firms have significantly complied with IFRS 1. Using panel data to analyze the effects of company attributes, size and leverage have a significant positive effect on IFRS 1 compliance. On the other hand, the coefficients of Earnings Per Share (EPS) and Return on Total Assets (ROTA) are negative and significant. This similarly implies that ROTA and EPS are important factors driving the compliance level of the companies in South Africa with the IFRS 1 disclosure. EPS and ROTA also exhibit an inverse relationship with the compliance level. Carrying out a longitudinal study helps to produce more recent evidence on the quality of IFRS financial reports in South Africa. The outcome of the study is beneficial to international literature as it provides enough evidence on the benefits of adopting IFRS adoption.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Klumpes ◽  
C. Ledlie ◽  
F. Fahey ◽  
G. Kakar ◽  
S. Styles

AbstractRecent changes made to the UK Corporate Governance Code require UK firms to report new or enhanced narrative information concerning their principal risks, their risk management processes and their future viability. This paper analyses whether the level and nature of voluntary compliance with these new requirements is consistent with alternative economic and political visibility incentives. We analyse relevant sections of financial reports produced by industry-matched samples of large-, mid- and small-cap UK-listed firms during the transitional 2013–2014 financial reporting years. Both specific and generic readability attributes of the reports are measured. We find that virtually no firm in our sample has provided any viability statement. Empirical analysis of disclosures concerning principal risk assessment and review processes appear to be primarily motivated by political visibility reasons. Examples of particularly good and cases of poor corporate risk reporting practices are also discussed. Possible implications for the actuarial profession are discussed.


Author(s):  
Ben Kwame Agyei-Mensah

According to the IASB's IFRS framework, qualitative characteristics are the attributes that make the information provided in financial statements useful to others. This study was conducted to investigate the quality of financial reports before and after adopting IFRSs in Ghana, and also the influence of firm-specific characteristics which include firm size, profitability, debt equity ratio, liquidity and audit firm size on the quality of financial information disclosed by firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange.The research was conducted through detailed analysis of the pre-official adoption period, (2006) and post adoption period, (2008) financial statements of the listed firms.  Descriptive analysis was performed to provide the background statistics of the variables examined.  This was followed by regression analysis which forms the main data analysis.  The results of the quality of financial information disclosure mean of 76.80% (pre adoption) and 87.09% (post adoption) for the two years indicate that the quality of financial reports has improved significantly after adopting IFRSs. The study thus confirms that the implementation of IFRSs generally reinforce accounting disclosure quality.  It also indicates listed firms' overwhelming compliance with the IASB's IFRS Framework.The results of the multiple regression analysis show that company size, represented by net assets and Auditor type were found to be associated at a statistically significant level with the quality of financial information disclosed.  With the improvement in the quality of the financial reports after adopting IFRS users are assured of useful information for financial decision-making.Keywords: Quality of financial reports' disclosure, Firm-specific characteristics, International Financial Reporting Standards, Mandatory disclosure, Ghana. JEL Classifications: M40, M41, M48


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Caputo ◽  
Rossella Leopizzi ◽  
Simone Pizzi ◽  
Virginia Milone

Since 2016, the European context has been characterised by the introduction of the Directive 95/2014/EU on mandatory non-financial reporting. The Directive has been transposed in the Italian context through the Legislative Decree 254/2016. However, following evidence previously collected from other jurisdictions, a high degree of scepticism by academics still characterises the debate on the effectiveness of this form of regulation. In fact, the literature highlights that the effects of a mandatory approach to non-financial reporting are limited to an increase in the annual quantity of information provided and not by an effective organizational change. Therefore, the contribution of our paper is twofold: a gap analysis between the overall degree of non-financial reporting quality between the years 2015 and 2017 and an empirical analysis, factors of which have impacted on the quality of non-financial reports prepared in 2017.


Author(s):  
Mohammed Riaz Azam

The IASB’s conceptual framework for financial reporting identifies multiple measurement bases and concludes that an entity may employ more than one measurement base in constructing the financial reports. The framework further clarify situations as to how the preparers will proceed in constructing the entity’s financial report where the preparers are satisfied that a piece of information is relevant to the users of financial reports, but is subject to a high degree of measurement uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the choice of multiple measurement bases in the conceptual framework and highlight the challenges posed to a user of financial reports who seeks to obtain insights into an entity’s financial performance and position through reading reports constructed using an eclectic approach to measurement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wan Nordin Wan Hussin ◽  
Hasan Mohamad Bamahros ◽  
Siti Norwahida Shukeri

Purpose Motivated by a recent call from DeFond and Zhang (2014) for auditing scholars to use “a richer set of audit firm, auditor office, and individual auditor characteristics to capture competency”, this study aims to extend the related line of research by examining the association between lead engagement partner workload, defined as the number of public listed clients the partner is in charge of, and audit lag. The moderating effects of partner tenure on the partner workload–audit lag relationship have also been examined. Design/methodology/approach The association between auditor workload and financial reporting timeliness on 651 non-financial firms listed on Bursa Malaysia is tested in this study. Data to compute the partner workload are based on 222 lead engagement partners who signed off the audit reports for all 892 public listed firms in 2013. Findings The busy auditors are observed to prolong audit lags, and the effect is more acute for non-Big 4 clients, busy season clients and a short partner tenure. The engagement partners with heavy workload can also mitigate the adverse effects of reduced audit report timeliness when they have a longer partner–client tenure. Research limitations/implications This study may understate the level of engagement partner workload when partners have private firms in their client portfolios. Notwithstanding that, this study reiterates the growing importance of examining accounting and auditing outcomes at the individual partner level. Practical implications The findings that over-burdened engagement partner takes a longer time to complete the audit add to the current debate, where audit regulators and various stakeholders are actively promoting discussions on potential indicators of audit efficiency and quality. Originality/value This study provides new evidence on the association between partner workload and audit reporting lag, which has hitherto been unexplored. This study also extends the research carried out by Gul et al. (2017) and Sharma et al. (2017) by providing additional evidence on the relationship between partner tenure and audit delay.


Author(s):  
Ben K. Agyei-Mensah

This chapter reports on the impact of the adoption of IFRS in Ghana. It first traced the history of accounting standards in Ghana and the reason for the adoption of IFRS in 2007. One of the key issues that IFRS talk about is the disclosure of financial and non financial information in corporate financial reports. Hence this chapter provides evidence on the extent of disclosures, the quality of the disclosures and the determinants of the disclosures. The disclosure of financial ratios, forward-looking information and internal control information in corporate annual reports were extensively studied and findings reported in this chapter. The results of the quality of financial information disclosure mean of 76.80% (pre adoption) and 87.09% (post adoption) for the two years indicate that the quality of financial reports has improved significantly after adopting IFRSs. The findings thus confirms that the implementation of IFRSs generally reinforce accounting disclosure quality. However, the low levels of other disclosures (accounting ratio disclosure quality 6.64%, level of disclosure 60%; forward looking information 35%; internal control information 42%) by listed firms in Ghana do not support signaling theory which suggests that firms with good performance will wish to signal their quality to investors, hence are more likely to disclose their performance by disclosing more voluntary information. It is therefore important for the SEC and The Ghana Stock Exchange to do more by enforcing adherence to the corporate code of corporate governance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Dejan Spasić ◽  
Mutaz Abouagla ◽  
Vojislav Sekerez

Developing countries are faced with a lot of challenges in providing high-quality financial reports based on modern accounting regulations and practices. With its specific colonial and postcolonial history of socioeconomic relations, Sudan is one of a few countries that has not adopted the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) either as a mandatory or as a voluntary financial reporting framework. Focusing on a sample of 142 respondents, the attitudes towards the obstacles and possible benefits of introducing the IFRS in Sudan expressed by accountants working in the industry sector are examined in the paper. This research study has shown that Sudanese accountants are highly aware of the needs and benefits of the IFRS adoption. The respondents predominantly agree that the IFRS adoption would increase the FDI inflow, reduce frauds and other unlawful activities, and improve the comparability, reliability and transparency of financial information, which currently is not the case. However, the research shows that accountants in Sudan also express a high degree of skepticism, given the numerous restrictions that they believe would make the introduction of the IFRS more difficult.


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