The impact of ownership structure and family board domination on voluntary disclosure for Jordanian listed companies

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of ownership structure and family board domination on voluntary disclosure for Jordanian listed companies. Ownership structure is characterised by government ownership, outside ownership, managerial ownership and number of shareholders. This study is based on a cross-sectional examination of the effect of corporate ownership structure and family domination on voluntary disclosure after controlling other variables for 57 non-financial Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. The multiple regression results show that the extent of voluntary disclosure is positively associated with government ownership and negatively associated with the proportion of shares held by management. Furthermore, we show that family domination is a significant factor in explaining variations in voluntary disclosure. We conclude that government ownership can help to promote transparency, but it has not yet eliminated the influence of management and the family control of boards on disclosure. However, outside ownership and number of shareholders are not associated with voluntary disclosure.