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This study aims to examine the impact of mandatory adoption of The Act 2013 in UK on voluntary carbon disclosure. Mandatory adoption of The Act 2013 in UK is a compelling setting to examine this research question because it is an exogenous imposed event and is unlikely to be affected by disclosure choice.

This study uses a difference-in-differences research design to examine the impact of mandatory adoption of The Act 2013 in UK on voluntary carbon disclosure. The treatment sample includes 451 UK firms subject to mandatory adoption of The Act 2013, and the control sample includes firms from 15 EU countries that did not mandate adoption during the sample period.

The authors document an increase in the quantity and quality of voluntary carbon disclosure following adoption of The Act 2013 in the treatment sample relative to the control sample. They also find that firms with better environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance experience a highly significant increase in voluntary carbon disclosure after adoption of The Act 2013. For firms from carbon-intensive vs less-carbon-intensive sectors, the results suggest that firms in carbon-intensive sectors experience a greater increase in the propensity of voluntary disclosure after adoption of The Act.

The authors examine the impact of mandatory adoption of The Act 2013 in UK on voluntary carbon disclosure and the impact of firms’ ESG activity on the relationship between voluntary and mandatory carbon disclosure. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this insight has never been documented in the literature.

This paper aims to empirically examine the impact of mandatory CSR disclosure on the CEO pay performance sensitivity.

Using the mandatory requirement of CSR disclosure as an exogenous shock, the authors compare the changes in CEO pay performance sensitivity for treatment firms with control firms through a difference-in-difference (DiD) approach.

The authors find that mandatory CSR disclosure enhances CEO pay performance sensitivity. The results also show that monitoring CEO power is a conduit through which mandatory CSR disclosure affects CEO pay performance sensitivity. The positive impact is more profound in firms with a powerful CEO, i.e. one who is politically well-connected, holds dual roles as both CEO and Chairman, and/or has had a long tenure. Furthermore, the increased CEO pay performance sensitivity after the mandate is prominent among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) only.

The findings of this paper have implications for other economies with similar institutional backgrounds as China. Although the mandatory CSR disclosure does not require firms to spend on CSR investment, the mandatory CSR disclosure alters firm behaviour, and mitigates agency problems.

This paper contributes to the studies on the impact of CSR disclosure on firms' behaviour. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effects of mandatory CSR disclosure on CEO pay performance sensitivity using the quasi-natural experiment settings.

The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

This study aims to investigate the equity market reaction to sustainability disclosure measures derived from firms' inaugural sustainability reports following the implementation of mandatory sustainability reporting in Singapore.

This study explores the equity market reaction to first-time sustainability reports of mandatory adopters and compares the reactions between voluntary and mandatory adopters. To mitigate any imbalanced distribution effects, entropy balancing techniques are employed.

The author observes a significant equity market reaction when mandatory adopters adhere to a reporting framework and release sustainability reports as standalone documents. Additionally, the study indicates that government regulation amplifies the equity market reaction for companies that include a board statement within their sustainability reports and present them as standalone publications.

The lack of quantitative information disclosed in the first-time sustainability reports may restrict the generalizability of the findings.

The findings provide valuable insights for organizations and managers to evaluate the market's response to sustainability disclosures and improve communication effectiveness with investors. Furthermore, the study has direct policy implications for global standard-setting organizations in sustainability reporting. The findings support the notion that investors value market-led and investor-focused sustainability disclosures.

The study contributes to the limited body of research that examines the capital market effects of mandatory sustainability disclosures. To the author’s knowledge, this is among a few studies to directly investigate the equity market reaction to mandatory sustainability disclosures at the firm level.

Focusing on the Agri-Food and Beverage sector, the paper investigates the direct effect of worldwide mandatory non-financial disclosure on several financial dimensions as well as its moderating effects on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors performed fixed-effect regressions on a sample of 180 global listed companies, considering a period of eight years. The authors also tested the moderating effects of non-financial disclosure regulation on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors found a positive direct impact of mandatory non-financial disclosure on Operating Return on Asset, Return on Equity and Return on Sales. The analysis also highlighted the negative moderating effects of non-financial reporting regulation on the relationship between sustainability issues and financial performance. As for the Cost of Debt, the authors found mixed results.

This study considers a short-term perspective focusing on a limited sample composed of companies playing a key role in the global agri-food system.

The paper identifies which financial performance dimensions are positively or negatively affected by mandatory non-financial disclosure. Accordingly, managers can rearrange corporate activities to deal with further reporting normative requirements concurrently preserving financial performances and fostering corporate sustainability.

This study recommends fostering mandatory non-financial disclosure to increase corporate transparency fostering the sustainability transition of the Agri-Food and Beverage industry.

The paper highlights global mandatory non-financial disclosure effects on financial performance considering a sector that is cross-cutting impactful on plural sustainability issues.

This study aims to examine the causal relationship between mandatory CSR disclosure and financial audit efficiency.

The authors use the unique institutional setting of China, where a subset of listed firms are mandated to disclose their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. The authors use propensity score matching and difference-in-differences approaches to compare audit efficiency in the pre- and post-mandatory CSR disclosure periods between the treatment and control groups. The regression models are estimated with robust standard errors clustered at the firm level.

This study finds that following China’s adoption of the mandatory disclosure of CSR, audit report lags decreased by 6% on average, suggesting that audit efficiency improved greatly following mandatory CSR disclosure. Moreover, this association is stronger when firms have better CSR performance, higher CSR report preparation costs, more earnings management before disclosure regulations and better internal controls and when firms belong to high-profile industries and in Big 4 (Big 10) accounting firms. Moreover, neither audit quality nor audit fees decrease when shorter audit lags occur for firms with mandatory CSR disclosures. Overall, the evidence suggests that mandatory CSR disclosure has a positive effect on audit efficiency and that the improvement of audit efficiency does not come as a consequence of reducing audit fees or deteriorating audit quality.

The results reported in this study have practical and policy implications for policymakers, accounting firms and auditors to pay more attention to CSR information.

This study provides evidence of the causal relationship between mandatory CSR disclosure regulation and audit efficiency. It enriches the research on audit service production efficiency from the perspective of nonfinancial information disclosure.

This paper aims to investigate firm-level variations in the extent of mandatory disclosures and address the drivers of mandatory disclosure using data from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region.

The extent of mandatory disclosure is examined using a disclosure index created with reference to 24 International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs).

The authors find that the extent of mandatory disclosure required by applicable IFRSs/International Accounting Standards increases with international presence, group firms, the level of voluntary disclosure, firm age and the education level of company financial controllers. It decreases with firm size and the proportion of institutional share ownership. The degree of board independence is positively related to the level of mandatory disclosure in firms with no state ownership. Profitability positively affects the level of mandatory disclosure to a greater extent in more liquid GCC firms. The results confirm that there is a greater sensitivity of mandatory disclosure to loss than to profit. Loss increases, whilst profit decreases, the extent of mandatory disclosure.

The results promote further understanding of international financial reporting differences in an emerging country setting.

The findings provide a detailed insight to investors, financial analysts, practitioners and academics.

The authors develop a highly granular mandatory disclosure index in a developing country setting and identify key drivers of such disclosure.

This study aims to examine whether announcements of mandatory sustainability disclosure affect corporate sustainability performance (CSP).

The authors use a quasi-experiment provided by mandatory sustainability disclosure announcements that occurred in 21 countries from 2006–2016. A difference-in-differences method is adopted. The authors restrict the drawing of all candidate treatment and control firms to a pool of firms that did not disclose sustainability information one year before the announcements.

The authors find that the announcements of mandatory sustainability disclosure are positively related to CSP. The positive effect is more pronounced for firms in countries with higher anticipation effects and lower awareness effects. Specifically, the authors find that the effect of the announcements is more pronounced in a country where the rule of law is higher and stakeholders are less likely to initiate communication about sustainability with firms, and with fewer active participants in and signatories to the United Nations Global Compact initiative. The findings hold under different robustness analyses.

The study enriches the knowledge about the effect of the announcements of comprehensive mandatory sustainability disclosure by analysing the consequences of these announcements. In the contribution to this growing stream of research, the authors provide evidence on the consequences of the announcements based on a cross-country sample and importantly, focusses on the non-economic consequences.

This paper aims to utilize institutional theory to examine the impact of the 2008-2010 regulatory reforms on compliance with mandatory disclosures by savings and credit co-operatives (SACCOs) in Kenya.

Two-stage least squares panel regression approach is utilized to analyse data covering 1,272 firm-year observations for 212 SACCOs over a six-year period, 2008-2013. An analysis of the pre- and post-regulation impacts on compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements is also performed.

The results, which are in support of the institutional theory, reveal that licensed SACCOs engage in higher compliance with mandatory disclosures, and this improves from the pre- to the post-regulation period. The results show that SACCOs under inquiry engage in lower compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements, especially in the post-regulation period. The findings also reveal a significant and positive association between SACCO size, co-operative governance and compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements.

The study focuses on transition-level SACCOs in a single country. An extension into other jurisdictions with nascent, transitional and mature SACCOs would provide greater insights into the impact of disclosure regulation. Further, the study uses a self-constructed disclosure checklist which is subject to coding errors and biases.

The findings highlight the need for SACCO regulators and accounting professional body to devise incentives to improve the level of compliance with required disclosures.

The study contributes to the dearth of evidence on the efficacy of the introduction of mandatory disclosure requirements in a developing country where compliance is problematic because of difficulties with enforcement.

This study investigates the interaction between the compulsory and voluntary disclosures in the annual reports of Saudi Arabian companies. The sample comprises both listed and non‐listed companies. The data were analyzed by constructing three separate disclosure indices relating to mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure that closely relates to mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure that is not closely related to mandatory disclosure. The results reveal that there is a significant, positive correlation between mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure related to the mandatory disclosure index. The study also reports a correlation between voluntary disclosure and the other two indices is found to be weak and insignificant. These weak relationships suggest an absence of effective co‐ordination between the parties involved in preparing the annual report. The analysis also reveals no clear pattern of relationships to exist between mandatory disclosure and the types of disclosure in the different industrial sectors examined in this study. The non‐correlation between these groups of disclosure may suggest low co‐ordination between the board of directors and the management in writing parts of the annual report.