Regulators have expressed concerns that investors misunderstand auditors’ responsibility to “read and consider” other information in the annual report (e.g., the MD&A), often assuming the entire annual report has been audited. This is particularly a concern in the U.S. where auditors do...

We study environmental and social (E&S) disclosures in annual reports. Using the word embedding model to examine more than 210,000 annual reports from 24,271 public firms in 30 international countries/regions between 2001 and 2020, we create an E&S dictionary that allows us to document trends in...

This study investigates board characteristics, including board leadership structure, which explain the human capital disclosure (HCD) provided by companies. It uses a self-constructed disclosure index to quantify the level of human capital information using content analysis. Generalized method...

Corporate governance reports (CGR) and annual reports are two fundamental corporate documents disseminated to shareholders about the companies' financial condition and operation. While the annual reports could be seen as outside appearance, the CGR reflects internal processes that an entity...

This study investigates the relationship between the comprehensibility of a firm's annual report and its stock return synchronicity in the Indian market. The study employs the readability of annual reports as a measure for the cost of information processing. The findings suggest that firms with...

This study aims to investigate the impact of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the readability of corporate annual reports of Saudi companies. Data have been collected for a sample of 67 companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange for the period 2014-2019....

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to explore the impression management practices in Covid-19 related discourses in the annual reports of the insurance companies in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach - To fulfil this objective, the authors have conducted a discourse analysis of the...

This paper aims to research factors that affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the context of listed companies in Vietnam. Our research uses data from listed companies in the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchanges from 2015 to 2020. We conduct the quantitative research...

We study financial reporting and disclosure practices in China using survey methods similar to prior studies of U.S. firms (i.e., Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal, 2005; Dichev, Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal, 2013). Comparing earnings features, motives to manage and smooth earnings, and voluntary...

Purpose - To investigate the consequence of COVID-19 pandemic on the financial reporting and disclosure (FRD) practices, the study has been conducted. Moreover, this paper highlights the significance of FRD practices in any emergency period and its relevance with legitimacy theory in Bangladesh...

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of earnings management on the readability of annual reports while also examining the moderating role of a female director. In particular, the readability of a company's annual report will be seen from the management perspective using the FOG...

Human capital is a primary source of value in modern firms, yet little is known about what employee information firms disclose and whether it is timely and informative given the SEC's flexible disclosure rules. We examine the determinants of firms' human capital disclosures by combining textual...

This paper examines how individual religiosity at the top level of organizations affects the quality of their disclosure practices, as measured by the readability of annual reports. Our paper extends the recent accounting and finance literature that moves away from a location-based measure to an...

Das Institut für Organisationsökonomik (IO) an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster wurde am 1. Oktober 2022 zwölf Jahre alt. Dieser 12. Jahresbericht informiert über das zwölfte Jahr, d. h. über das Wintersemester 2021/22 und das Sommersemester 2022. Wie in den Vorjahren...

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the conciseness and complexity of financial disclosures and market reactions, using the annual reports of Chinese-listed B-share companies over the period 2006-2018. We employed a set of statistical methods that were derived from...

The study evaluates the decision usefulness of integrated reports by listed Namibian companies using specially designed control checklists. A manual content analysis of the sampled 2018-2019 integrated reports was performed, using the control checklists for the decision usefulness' qualitative...

Introduction -- Theoretical Framework of Value Relevance -- Disclosure Theories -- Textual Analysis -- Measures in Finance and Accounting -- The Value Relevance of Textual Analysis -- Empirical Analysis of the Annual Reports -- Conclusion.

Firms are required to provide financial information via the financial statements and the MD&A—a narrative explanation of the financial statements. Our study examines how firms use the MD&A channel when their financial statement channel is inadequate. We proxy for the adequacy of the financial...

Our study analyses the nature, quality and extent of human resource disclosures (HRDs) of UK Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 firms by relying on a novel disclosure index measuring the depth and breadth of disclosures. Contextually, we focus on the five-year period following the then...

Generally, companies have been faced with problem that ranges from non-disclosure to partial disclosure of intangible assets (IAs). This however, distorts the oversight function of the directors of companies from producing full and accurate financial information in the annual reports for various...

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird untersucht, ob und wie ausführlich in der Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung börsennotierter Elektroautomobilhersteller auf soziale Nachhaltigkeit eingegangen wird. Anhand eines selbst entwickelten Kriterienkatalogs, welcher sich an den Kernelementen des...

Using the unique scheduled disclosure system for annual reports in China's stock market, we examine within-industry herding behavior in annual report timing. The results reveal the waiting and following behavior strategies used in the annual reporting process within industry. Firms that...