Opening the “black box” : How internal reporting systems contribute to the quality of financial disclosure

Purpose – Institutional investors use the information disclosed by listed companies to analyze the performance of their investments. The purpose of this paper is to open the “black box” of the construction of financial disclosure by analyzing the internal reporting systems of firms with reference to the information disclosed. Design/methodology/approach – Using indexes, the quality of the financial disclosure and the internal reporting systems are measured, and analyzed with a view to finding some links between them. It is expected that the quality of disclosure is dependent on the quality of the internal reporting. Findings – Complex interactions between internal reporting and financial disclosure are revealed, which leads to the identification of a typology of practices. The dependence of the relationship may be troubled by the willingness of the firm to communicate, or by the internal methods of control. According to the various cases, different levels of usefulness of the information for the investor are expected. Originality/value – This paper is a first attempt to analyse information disclosed by firms with regards to the internal information at their disposal.