Determinants of Timeliness of Corporate Disclosure of Selected Companies in India

This study empirically examines the quality of corporate disclosure with special reference to its qualitative attribute of ‘Timeliness’. It is based on a sample of 288 and 292 companies drawn from BT-500 companies (November, 2004 issue) for the financial years 2004-05 and 2005-06. Auditor’s report has been used as a surrogate for timeliness. PROWESS, the database of Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has been used as a major source of data collection. SPSS 10.05 has been used as a statistical tool to arrive at results. Descriptive statistics indicate that almost all the companies in the sample report within 180 days (as set by regulatory authorities in India) during both the years of the study. Non-parametric test namely Spearman’s rank correlation has been used to check the association of the independent variables with reporting lag. Backward stepwise regression analysis revealed that the corporate attributes namely, size of a firm, nature of industry and audit specific attributes namely, audit firm size and audit complexity significantly influence the reporting lag of selected companies in India during both the years of study. Rest of the variables namely, profitability of a firm, listing category, residential status, age, leverage and audit fee could not significantly influence the reporting lag during both the years of the study.