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This paper aims to investigate empirically the common alternative methods of measuring annual report narratives. Five alternative methods are employed, a weighted and un-weighted disclosure index and three textual coding systems, measuring the amount of space devoted to relevant disclosures.

The authors investigate the forward-looking voluntary disclosures of 30 UK non-financial companies. They employ descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, mean comparison t-test, rankings and multiple regression analysis of disclosure measures against determinants of corporate voluntary reporting.

The results reveal that while the alternative methods of forward-looking voluntary disclosure are highly correlated, important significant differences do nevertheless emerge. In particular, it appears important to measure volume rather than simply the existence or non-existence of each type of disclosure. Overall, we detect that the optimal method is content analysis by text-unit rather than by sentence.

This paper contributes to the extant literature in forward-looking disclosure by reporting important differences among alternative content analyses. However, the decision regarding whether this should be a computerised or a manual content analysis appears not to be driven by differences in the resulting measures. Rather, the choice is the outcome of a trade-off between the time involved in setting up coding rules for computerised analysis versus the time saved undertaking the analysis itself.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the accounting expertise of audit committee members is associated with the disclosure of forward-looking information.

Manual content analysis is used to analyze forward-looking information disclosed in annual reports as well as gather data about the accounting expertise of directors. Regression analysis is performed to study the association between the disclosure variables and the accounting expertise of audit committee members.

The results show that the accounting expertise of audit committee members is associated with forward-looking disclosure practices, particularly with information of a financial and strategic nature.

The evidence has direct implications for companies in the selection of directors, as stakeholders may demand nomination committees to appoint audit committees with the accounting experts. They may also request regulatory actions regarding the structure of the audit committee, as these add to the evidence on the benefits of selecting such experts.

The evidence on the role of accounting expertise could also help the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to narrow the definition of financial expertise to specifically consider accounting expertise, as is already happening in the EU context.

This paper extends prior research on corporate governance and voluntary disclosure by showing the association between the company having at least one accounting expert in the audit committee and the level of disclosure of value-relevant information.

This study aims to examine the effect of the audit committee characteristics on forward-looking disclosure.

The characteristics of audit committee that examined are audit committee expertise, audit committee meeting frequency and audit committee size. To measure the extent of forward-looking disclosure, this study did content analysis using a checklist of 22 forward-looking items. The samples of this research are 285 non-financial firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the year 2015. Ordinary least square regression is used for hypotheses testing.

The results of this study show that the audit committee accounting expertise, audit committee financial expertise, the frequency of audit committee meetings and the size of the audit committee have a significant positive effect on the forward-looking disclosure.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the audit committee characteristics on forward-looking disclosure in the context of Indonesia, one of the emerging markets.

This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of a cash flow generating standard for individual financial contract level data and the ability to create such a standard.

The authors analyze the importance for such a standard of software that turns natural language contracts into cash flow generating algorithms; a data dictionary that standardizes contract terms; and access to variables that represent the state of the world (e.g. market risk, counterparty risk, etc.) that affect contractual obligations.

The ability to realize benefits from the use of such a contract level algorithmic standard depends on the following: making the standard’s software open source; fully testing the software to have complete confidence in its accuracy; and enabling the software to use of a wide range of models of various sources of risk (market, credit and behavior risk) to support forward-looking analysis. Such a standard would solve the disconnect that exists in financial firms between the representation of financial contracts for transaction processing and analysis. The ACTUS Financial Research Foundation is building, testing and making available such a standard that represents almost all financial contracts extant in markets.

The adoption of such a standard would reduce the costs of operations of financial firms, provide the computational infrastructure for more effective regulatory oversight, reduce regulatory reporting costs and improve financial market transparency. It would also enable the assessment of systemic risk by directly quantifying the interconnectedness of firms.

This is a new approach to financial analytics that clearly separates the deterministic components of finance, which can be standardized from the stochastic elements that cannot be standardized.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the market impacts of US biofuels and biofuel policies.

Two methods of analysis are employed. The first method looks back in time and estimates what US crop prices would have been during the 2005 to 2009 marketing years under two scenarios. The second method of analysis is forward looking and examines the market impacts of the blender tax credit and mandate on the distribution of prices in the 2011 calendar and marketing year.

The results developed in the previous two sections show that US ethanol policies modestly increased maize prices from 2006 to 2009 and that market impacts of the policies will be larger under tighter market conditions.

More flexible US biofuel policy including removing the blenders tax credit, which does not help US biofuel industry as long as the mandates are in place, and relaxing blending mandates when feedstock supplies are low.

This report makes three contributions to understanding the extent to which US biofuel policies contribute to higher agricultural and food prices. First, estimates of the impact of US ethanol policies on crop and food prices reveal that the impacts of the subsidies were quite modest. The second contribution is to provide estimates of the impact on agricultural commodity prices and food prices from market‐driven expansion of ethanol. The final contribution of this report is improved insight into how current US biofuel policies are expected to affect crop prices in the near future.

This study aims to investigate the quality of disclosure of a cutting-edge reporting tool – integrated reporting (<IR>) – in terms of its effectiveness to report on COVID-19 pandemic information, its ability to provide forward-looking information and risk impact implications, and its quality determinants in challenging times.

Thanks to a content analysis of 247 <IR> for FY20, an integrated reporting disclosure score was developed to assess the disclosure quality provided by the sampled companies. Three research questions were tested through logistic regressions.

Non-financial disclosure activities struggle to provide adequate information in terms of potential future scenarios, risk assessment and forward-looking analyses. However, companies incorporated in “Anglo-Saxon” territories drafted integrated reports of higher quality. More recently, incorporated companies have made a greater effort to measure and report COVID-19 pandemic impacts on environmental, social and governance and business activities, also increasing their risk assessment and mitigation efforts. Concerning the determinants of disclosure quality, leverage, corporate governance structures, country of incorporation and belonging to “high impact” industries all lead to a higher quality of <IR> disclosure.

Examining in detail corporate social responsibility activities and corporate governance integrity is pivotal to orienting strategy towards sustainable trajectories: to do so, corporate reporting and disclosure practices are essential tools. In this context, corporate governance systems that emphasize board diversity are proven, even in disruptive circumstances, to play a crucial role in providing corporate reports of higher quality. High disclosure quality that goes beyond mere financial results is considered to be necessary to remain competitive strategically, socially and environmentally.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether voluntary disclosure and dividends signal future earnings for decline earnings growth firms. It seeks to inform regulators (and managers) about the potential benefits of increased disclosure and increased dividends to investors for firms that suffer an earnings decline after a sustained period of annual earnings growth.

The event study methodology is used to examine the behaviour of 33 non‐financial UK firms after a decline of their sustained earnings growth. It also uses the computerised content analysis to count the number of forward‐looking sentences in the annual report narratives. It calculates changes in disclosure and dividends in the year of earnings growth declines and examine their association with the abnormal future earnings.

Consistent with prior research, it is found that increasing dividends does not convey value relevant information about future earnings for decline earnings growth firms. However, based on disclosure signalling theory, it is found that increasing levels of forward‐looking information in annual report narratives is an important mechanism for signalling future earnings for these firms.

For an effective communication with the stock market in the years of earnings decline after sustained period of growth, managers should give high priority to developing an appropriate and complete set of forward‐looking information in their annual reports. This will enable investors to better anticipate firms' future prospects. The results suggest that if forward‐looking statements in annual report narratives contain value relevant information for investors, then regulators should consider a compulsory narrative section (i.e. operating and financial review) in the annual report.

This paper is the first to study the value relevance of voluntary disclosure for decline earnings growth firms.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain financial analysts' views regarding the usefulness of a number of items of accounting information via a postal survey. This usefulness is explored in the context of the Egyptian capital market. In addition the usefulness of different types of information is researched, namely: historical vs forward‐looking information; mandatory vs voluntary information; and quantitative vs non‐quantitative information.

This paper uses descriptive analysis to investigate the views of a sample of 23 financial analysts regarding a number of items of accounting information. Analysts' ratings are obtained via a postal questionnaire, most of which are collected by hand. Fifteen out of 23 responses are collected in person, which offer the opportunity to ask follow‐up questions about the information which the analysts see as valuable.

The findings indicate that different items of information are valued differently. In the context of the Egyptian market, financial analysts tend to value: mandatory disclosure more than voluntary disclosure; quantitative information more than non‐quantitative information; and historic information more than forward‐looking information. This type of preference reflects the information environment in Egypt, where mandatory disclosure is comprehensive and detailed based on International Accounting Standards but where compliance is an issue. Voluntary disclosure is limited and other sources of information are less common. Since mandatory information in Egypt tends to be historic and quantitative in nature, this may explain the preference for these types of disclosures.

The findings suggest that the importance of different types of information may be affected by the degree of maturity of the market and how rich the information environment is.

The results should be useful in informing companies and market regulators about the types of information that financial analysts find useful for investment decision making and the areas of disclosure where financial analysts suggest that improvement is needed.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the views of a sample of financial analysts regarding the usefulness of accounting information and different types of disclosure in the context of an emerging capital market where a dearth of studies exist.

Traditional methods of assurance outlined by current professional standards are risk-based models where the emphasis is on the veracity of published data rather than on the rigour of the interpretation or analysis of information provided to users. As such, they are not well suited for expressing an opinion on qualitative, subjective or forward-looking assessments typically included in integrated reports. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to describe an alternate approach to assurance and identifies the initial elements of an “interpretive assurance model”.

The research is exploratory/interpretive. It relies on detailed interviews with experienced auditors and preparers to develop an initial approach for providing some level of assurance over an integrated report.

The research identifies elements of an interpretive assurance model which focusses on providing assurance on the interpretation and analysis of information included in an integrated report rather than on underlying data. These include an examination of the completeness of the explanation of the value creation process provided in an integrated report; the methods used to support management discussion and analysis; and the reasonability of the review process used to ensure the reliability of qualitative, subjective and forward-looking representations contained in an integrated report.

The study is conducted in a South African setting. While limiting the study to a single jurisdiction may be seen as a limitation, local preparers and auditors have had at least five years of experience with the application of an integrated reporting framework and are in a strong position to provide detailed insights.

An interpretive assurance model shifts the focus from objective verification of data using defined test procedures to evaluation of the interpretation and analysis process used to prepare an integrated report. Application of the proposed model will require practitioners and auditing students to be trained extensively in qualitative analytical techniques. The inherent complexity of contemporary business models and the multi-dimensional focus of integrated reports will also result in changes in the composition of audit teams which are currently dominated by experts in financial reporting rather than integrated or strategic business management.

The paper is the first to offer a practical approach for providing assurance over an integrated report. It responds to calls form the International Integrated Reporting Council and International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board for more innovative assurance models for addressing the reporting needs of contemporary organisations.

This paper aims to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on forward-looking corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure (FCSRD).

The authors use the manual content analysis to measure FCSRD for a sample of 94 companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2016. Data on companies' FCSRD are manually collected from annual reports. The authors also use regression analyses to test the research hypotheses.

The authors find that board size positively affects FCSRD, while CEO duality and family ownership negatively impact FCSRD.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first evidence of how governance mechanisms affect FCSR information in corporate annual reports in a developing country.