Firm Characteristics, Governance Attributes and Corporate Voluntary Disclosure: A Study of Jordanian Listed Companies

Abstract

This paper focuses on the voluntary disclosure in corporate annual reports in Jordan, and its objectives are: (1) To measure the voluntary disclosure level in the annual reports of Jordanian companies listed in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). (2) To examine the relationship between a number of explanatory variables and the level of voluntary disclosure. Unweighted disclosure index consisting of 63 voluntary items was developed to assess the level of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of 124 listed companies on ASE for the period of 2010 to 2012. Univariate and Multivariate analysis were applied to explore the relationship between each explanatory variables and the level of voluntary disclosure and a number of sensitivity tests were taken to further analysis. The findings of the study reveal that the level of voluntary disclosure in Jordanian corporate annual reports is low (its average is 35.7% for three years), although there is a significant increase in the level of voluntary disclosure from year to year. Univariate analysis reveals that firm size, leverage, firm age, profitability, liquidity, board size and audit committee size have a significant positive relationship with the level of voluntary disclosure while independent directors and ownership structure have a significant negative relationship with the level of voluntary disclosure. Meanwhile, multivariate analysis reveals same results to Univariate analysis except leverage has no impact on the level of voluntary disclosure.