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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 paper aims to examine the nature and extent of forward-looking disclosures in early examples of integrated reporting and to investigate the determinants of those disclosures.

The sample for research involved 55 non-financial companies whose reports are available in the Integrated Reporting Examples Database for the year 2014. The authors used content analysis to investigate the quantitative and qualitative forward-looking disclosures among early adopters of integrated reporting. The forward-looking disclosure index (FLDI) was categorized into two main groups, quantitative and qualitative, including 30 items in total. Multivariate ordinary least squares regression was used to investigate the associations proposed in the research hypotheses.

The authors determined that the majority of the entities tended to provide qualitative forward-looking disclosures rather than quantitative. Further, the findings showed that gender diversity and firm size are positively related to forward-looking disclosures, whereas leverage is negatively related to forward-looking disclosures. Contrary to expectations, the authors did not find a significant impact created by board size, board composition, profitability or industry on forward-looking disclosures.

The research contributes to the current integrated reporting and forward-looking disclosure literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no prior study that has investigated forward-looking disclosures in integrated reports. This study contributes to the current literature by examining the determinants of forward-looking disclosures by categorizing them as quantitative and qualitative. Further, this research adds empirical findings to the literature on the association found between female directors and forward-looking disclosures.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance, corruption and disclosure of forward-looking information in listed firms in two African countries, Botswana and Ghana.

The study uses 174 firm-year observations between the period of 2011-2013 for listed firms in the two countries. Each annual report was individually examined and coded to obtain the disclosure of forward-looking information index. Descriptive analysis was performed to provide the background statistics of the variables examined. This was followed by regression analysis which forms the main data analysis.

The findings show that firms in the least corrupt country, Botswana, disclose more forward-looking information than firms in Ghana, one of the most corrupt countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This confirms the relationship between the transparency level of a country and the transparency level of the listed firms in that country.

This is one of the few studies in sub-Saharan Africa that considered the impact of corporate governance factors on transparency and disclosure of forward-looking information. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between corporate governance and disclosure by showing that disclosure of forward-looking information in Ghana is associated with the proportion of independent board members. The disclosure of forward-looking information in Botswana on the other hand is influenced by board ownership concentration. The findings of this study will help market regulators in Ghana, Botswana and sub-Saharan Africa, Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Sub-Sahara African Exchanges in evaluating the adequacy of the current disclosure regulations in their countries.

This paper aims to empirically explore the underlying factors that may affect the extent to which forward‐looking information is disclosed.

This study uses a list of forward‐looking keywords to demonstrate the differences, if any, in the level of disclosure among firms and between sectors. The sample includes 46 companies listed in either the Dubai financial market or the Abu Dubai securities market. Statistical analysis is performed using a backward regression.

Debt ratio and profitability are found to be significant; however, sector type, firm size, and auditor size are found to have insignificant association with the level of forward‐looking information disclosed in UAE annual reports.

A number of users, such as investors, lenders, and auditors, may find these results beneficial. These users may consider the results of this study when they are dealing with firms that have low profitability and high financial risk. Accordingly, they may wish to extend their investigations and verify such reporting practices. By doing this, the quality of information that is available to the public may be enhanced; and hence, users of annual reports may be better served.

It is important to note that the association between the extent of disclosure and the selected corporate attributes is still ambiguous. There are a very limited number of studies that have examined disclosure of forward‐looking information in developing countries and even fewer such studies may be found in the Middle Eastern countries. To the best of the one's knowledge, no study yet has examined the forward‐looking information disclosure issues in the UAE or Middle Eastern countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between corporate governance mechanisms and quality of forward-looking information in the Chinese stock market which presents a mandatory disclosure environment for forward-looking information.

Using sales forecasts to proxy forward-looking information and using precision and accuracy to measure the quality of information disclosure, the authors investigate the impact of corporate governance attributes on the precision and accuracy of sales forecasts made by listed Chinese firms in their 2010 annual reports, using logistics and ordinary least squares regressions.

The authors find good corporate governance has a positive and significant impact on the precision choice of sales forecasts disclosure. Firms with good corporate governance are more likely to disclose more precise sales forecasts than providing qualitative discussions on firms’ sales trend. In addition, good corporate governed firms are found more likely to provide precise non-financial information. The authors also find that good corporate governance is positively associated with making more conservative sales forecasts disclosure. However, the authors find no significant relationship between good corporate governance and smaller forecast error.

The study makes significant contributions to corporate disclosure literature. The authors investigate the determinants of the quality of forward-looking information in a mandatory disclosure regime while most forward-looking information disclosure literature have been conducted in a voluntary-based disclosure environment. The authors examine whether in a mandatory disclosure regime, corporate governance mechanisms can play a positive role in precision choices and accuracy of forward-looking information. Further, the study is the first to examine corporate governance and the quality of non-financial forward-looking information (sales target and production goal). The research findings therefore extend forward-looking information disclosure research from financial information to non-financial information.

The empirical findings will provide regulators with evidence on the quality of forward-looking information in a mandatory disclosure regime and the influence of corporate governance on forward-looking disclosure. The properties of forward-looking information disclosure in China should be of interest to policy makers, investors and financial analysts in other international jurisdictions.

The study investigates forward-looking information in a mandatory disclosure regime while most extant forward-looking information studies have been conducted in a voluntary disclosure environment. The study is the first to examine the quality of non-financial forward-looking information such as operational goals and plans, and to investigate the association between the quality of non-financial forward-looking information and corporate governance mechanisms. The research findings extend forward-looking information disclosure research from quantitative financial information to quantitative non-financial information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance on risk and forward-looking disclosures in Qatar.

The authors automatically measure levels of risk and forward-looking disclosures in the annual reports of Qatari firms for the period 2008–2014. The authors also use two ways clustered error pooled panel regressions to examine the determinants of these disclosures.

The authors find that firms with a higher percentage of foreign ownership disclose more forward-looking information; conversely, board size has a negative impact on the forward-looking disclosure. Financial firms tend to disclose less forward-looking information, however, they tend to disclose more forward-looking information after the 2008 global financial crisis. The authors also find negative relationships between the risk disclosure and both the number of non-executive members of the board of directors and duality role of the CEO.

The study uses the quantity of disclosure as a proxy for the quality of disclosure.

The findings should help the users of corporate annual reports in Qatar to understand managerial incentives for reporting risk and forward-looking information. This should help regulators to set a proper set of disclosure rules. Moreover, this study increases our understanding of the behavior of international investors and the board characteristics (i.e. board size) in motivating risk and forward-looking disclosures in Qatari firms.

The authors provide the original empirical evidence on the impact of corporate ownership and board characteristics on risk and forward-looking disclosures for Qatari firms using two ways clustered error pooled panel regressions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between the financial expertise (accounting and non-accounting) of female directors in the audit committee and the voluntary disclosure of financial forward-looking information.

The sample is composed of companies belonging to the Standard and Poor`s 100 Index in 2016. Content analysis techniques are used to analyze both information disclosed in annual reports and the financial expertise of female directors.

The results fail to find an association between the presence of women in the audit committee and the disclosure of financial forward-looking information. However, the disclosure of this information is associated with the presence of female audit committee members with financial expertise, especially accounting expertise.

The academic implications are related with the need for a consideration of the personal attributes of female directors to understand their role in the boardroom or on subcommittees.

Given the importance of financial forward-looking information in the capital markets, these findings will also help policymakers and managers to implement effective corporate governance structures and will have significant implications for the selection of female audit committee members.

This paper is the first to examine whether the specific expertise of female directors, beyond mere gender, makes a difference in financial forward-looking disclosure strategies.

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.

Amid growing stakeholder needs, this study aims to assess the effect of boardroom characteristics on the disclosure of forward-looking information by listed firms on the Ghana stock exchange (GSE). Further, it investigates the mediating role of firm size in the relationship between boardroom characteristics and forward-looking information disclosure (FLID).

Using data from the annual reports of a sample of firms on the GSE in 2019 and multiple regression analysis, the effect of boardroom characteristics on the disclosure of forward-looking information is ascertained.

The results depict that board gender diversity, i.e. female representation on the board, is positive and significantly related to firms’ disclosure levels on the GSE. Similarly, board independence and auditor type have a positive and significant relationship with FLID, whereas profitability and financial leverage do not affect disclosure levels. The further analysis depicts that the relationship between board size and FLID is mediated by firm size.

This study’s findings would aid management, market regulators and investors in Ghana and other developing contexts assess mechanisms that would increase FLID among firms to satisfy stakeholders.

This paper focuses on the extent of FLID after the setbacks and subsequent rejuvenation of Ghana’s financial and nonfinancial system. Specifically, this paper adds to the few studies on the African continent that examined the influence of boardroom characteristics on FLID.

According to the “strategic focus and future orientation” principle of the integrated reporting (<IR>) framework, <IR> should provide information useful to support investors in assessing the future financial performance of organizations. This study aims to support the operationalization of this function by improving the forward-looking orientation of the integrated report.

Basing on the backward- and forward-looking disclosure in <IR> and the dynamic resource-based view (DRBV), this study develops an explorative case study building a quantitative simulation model based on an integrated report.

This study provides useful insights into how operationalizing the <IR> “future orientation” and obtaining more quantitative information on the organization’s capacity to create value in the future by applying DRBV and quantitative simulation modeling.

The article presents one case study to explore the method suggested to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation. Additional case studies applying the same research design should be certainly useful to refine the method.

Supporting the <IR> forward-looking orientation, this study provides additional information for the decision-making process of investors, thus contributing to the efficient and productive allocation of capital.

Few studies have investigated forward-looking information in integrated reports, highlighting the existence of an “information gap” referred to such disclosure. Overcoming these previous results, the study provides useful insights on how to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation.