Corporate governance and voluntary disclosure in Kuwait

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of 170 Kuwaiti companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange in 2007. We first identified four major corporate governance characteristics: proportion of non-executive directors to total number of directors on the board; proportion of family members to total number of directors on the board; role duality; and a voluntary audit committee. We then used univariate and multivariate regression analyses to examine the relationship between these characteristics and voluntary disclosure in annual reports. Using a self-disclosure index to measure voluntary disclosure, the average level of voluntary disclosure by sample companies is 19 per cent, indicating some improvement over the sample companies in an earlier study by Al-Shammari (2008), who found 15 per cent voluntary disclosure. This result suggests a trend toward more transparency by Kuwaiti companies. The results indicate that only the existence of a voluntary audit committee is significantly and positively related to the extent of voluntary disclosure. The result is robust with respect to controls for company size, leverage, auditor type and industry memberships. These results indicate the need to improve Kuwaiti market transparency through additional constraints on corporate governance characteristics. It is believed that this result will prove useful to regulators, preparers of financial statements and investors. Specifically, users of accounting information like investors may consult the findings to understand Kuwaiti companies better when diversifying their investment portfolios.