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This paper aims to propose and apply a novel risk-based approach to explore whether socio-political theories explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures given inconclusive evidence on the relation between environmental disclosure and environmental performance.

Based on content analysis of corporate risk reporting, the paper develops measures of environmental risk to proxy for a firm’s exposure to public pressure in regard to environmental concerns that should be positively associated with the level of corporate environmental disclosures according to socio-political theories. Multiple regressions are used to test the predictions of socio-political theories for US Standards and Poor’s 500 constituents from polluting sectors.

The level of environmental disclosures is found to be positively associated with a firm’s environmental risk while unrelated to its environmental performance. The findings suggest that firms tend to provide higher levels of environmental disclosures in response to greater exposure to public pressure as depicted by broad environmental indicators. The results are robust to alternative measures of environmental disclosures, environmental risk and environmental performance, alternative specifications of the economic model and additional sensitivity checks.

This study is limited to US firms in polluting sectors. The risk-based approach proposed may not be appropriate to cover sectors where corporate risk reporting is less likely to address environmental risk, but it could potentially be adopted in other countries with advanced risk reporting regulation or practice.

Findings are important to understand a firm’s incentives to disclose environmental information. Cross-sectional differences found in environmental disclosures, risk and performance, highlight the importance of considering industry affiliation when analyzing environmental data.

This paper is the first to use firm-level environmental risk variables to explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures. The risk-based approach taken suggests opportunities for research at the multi-country level and in countries where corporate environmental performance data are not publicly available.

This study aims at examining the level of risk of disclosure practices and the effect of four board of directors' characteristics (board size, board meetings, CEO duality and board expertise) on these practices in the Jordanian context. This study also adds to the body of literature by examining the moderating effect of family ownership on the relationship between the board of directors' characteristics and the corporate risk disclosure.

The sample of this study contains the non-financial Jordanian firms listed on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). 376 annual reports of the sampled firms over four years from 2014 to 2017 were used. The content analysis approach was used to collect data and to determine the level of risk disclosure by computing the number of risk-related sentences in the annual reporting. To test the study's hypothesis, the random effect model was employed.

The empirical results show that the total of the risk disclosure sentences for each firm ranges from a minimum value of 2 sentences to a maximum value of 61 sentences, and the mean of CRD is 28 sentences. The results also indicate that the board expertise is positively related with the level of risk disclosure. Conversely, CEO duality has a negative impact on the risk disclosure practices. However, the results failed to support that the board size and the board meetings have a significant effect on the level of risk disclosure. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that the family ownership moderates the relationship between the board of directors and the corporate risk disclosure.

The finding of this study is more likely be useful for many concerned parties, researchers, authorities, investors and financial analysts alike in understanding the current practices of the risk disclosure in Jordan, thus helping them in reconsidering and reviewing the accounting standards and improving the credibility and transparency of the financial reports in the Jordanian capital market.

The current study contributes to the literature of risk disclosure because the previous research has paid little attention to this topic in Jordan. To the best knowledge of the researcher, this study is the first Jordanian study that focuses on examining the relationship between the board of directors' characteristics and the corporate risk disclosure in the non-financial sector. Furthermore, it is the first study that examines the moderating role of family ownership on such relationships. Consequently, the results of the current study draw attention to the CRD practices and the monitoring role of board of directors in Jordan.

This paper contributes to risk management research with reference to disclosure of risk specific information within the oil and gas industry. This paper provides empirical evidence regarding voluntary and mandatory disclosure behaviour from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective.

A longitudinal empirical study examines probabilistic reserve quantum reporting of UK companies, over a time-period spanning voluntary and mandatory disclosure. The researchers analyse disclosure behaviour under voluntary and mandatory time spans using a logistical regression approach to measure determinants of risk reporting. Form of regulation is considered as the fundamental driver for disclosure whilst controlling for other relevant variables. Implications for developing international regulation are presented with suggestions for further research.

Mandatory reporting is not seen as a significant influence to disclosure. Degree of risk, quality of audit firms, level of stock exchange and organisational visibility each impact on disclosure. The findings indicate that a mandatory disclosure approach is ineffective, partially explained by mimetic and normative forces and a balancing of agency-related costs and benefits. There is an inverse relationship between level of risk and risk reporting.

Generalisation of the findings is limited due to the specific context of the extractive industry.

The paper seeks to inform the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) on-going consideration of risk reporting and also its extractive industries deliberations.

The paper provides original insight into the area of risk management with particular focus on risk specificity and quantitative metrics for risk profiling not previously tested. The paper introduces risk profiling as a variable in risk disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of risk disclosure and the factors determining this for all listed banks in Bangladesh.

Relying on a theoretical framework based on agency theory and the creation of a risk disclosure index (RDI) based on International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 7, Basel II: market discipline, and prior literature, hand-collected data from the annual reports of all 30 banks traded on the Dhaka Stock Exchange over 2007-2012, creating 180 bank-year observations, are analysed.

The study suggests that implementation of IFRS 7 and Basel II: market discipline standards in a non-mandated environment raised the extent of risk disclosure in every category of financial institution risk (market, credit, liquidity, operational and equities). The effect can be attributed to regulatory concerns and voluntary adoption of international disclosure standards in the banking industry in Bangladesh. Specifically, whilst the determinants of disclosure vary across types of risk, the number of risk committees, leverage, company size, the existence of a risk management unit, board size and a Big4 affiliate auditor are significant determinants of at least one category of risk disclosure.

The source of risk disclosures is limited to listed banks’ annual reports.

The RDI, developed in this paper, contributes to the literature by: first, quantifying the extent of each of five types of risk disclosure; and second, identifying the factors determining them. Stakeholders, particularly depositors and investors, can use this index to select or monitor their bank of interest.

The RDI was developed according to the most relevant standards – IFRS 7 and Basel II: market discipline, plus prior scholarly literature. This type of benchmarking has not been conducted to date in previous studies. Inferences about risk disclosure are based on archival data derived from all listed banks in a virtually unregulated environment. Further, the study complements the literature by providing support for the applicability of agency theory in investigating the level of risk disclosure by banks.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand how mandatory risk categories are disclosed and to provide a better understanding of the reasons why risk disclosure looks less useful than it ought to be.

We analyze how Italian banks provide risk information, by focusing on its characteristics to find out any differences between the notes to the financial statements and the public report, both prepared in compliance with the instructions of the Bank of Italy. We assess the risk-related reporting practices of 66 Italian banks, based on a content analysis of the two mandatory reports, and verify whether bank-specific factors explain any differences.

Italian banks formally comply with the Bank of Italy’s instructions, but there is discretion to choose the characteristics of the information provided. Despite different risk categories to disclose in each report, disclosure is quite uniform, although banks tend to provide denser information in the notes to the financial statements and the difference in the economic signs between the two reports decreases as the level of risk increases.

The significance of this study goes beyond the debate taking place in the academic arena, as it can be largely relevant for preparers, those responsible for setting international and national accounting standards, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the domestic supervisory authorities, particularly concerning the possible introduction of requirements that are more explicit than the existing ones.

The Italian setting is very relevant because unlike other countries, Italy adopts “interventionist enforcements”, which are regarded as a critical tool for achieving the minimum disclosure requirements. Moreover, the two sets of disclosure required by the Bank of Italy have never been investigated in a single data set.

The paper identifies the types of risks disclosed by Italian organisations using integrated reporting (IR). This paper aims to understand the level and features of risk disclosure with the adoption of IR.

The authors use risk classifications already provided in the literature to develop a content analysis of Italian organisations’ integrated reports published.

The content analysis reveals that most of the Italian organisations incorporate many types of risk disclosure into their integrated reports. Organisations use this alternative form of reporting to communicate risk differently from how they disclose risks in traditional annual financial reporting. That is, the study finds that the organisations use their integrated reports to disclose a broader group of risks, related to the environment and society, and do so using narrative and visual representation.

The paper contributes to a narrow stream of research investigating risk disclosure provided through IR, contributing to the understanding of the role of IR in representing an organisational risk.

This study aims to empirically examine whether the political connection is related to risk disclosure practices. The study also seeks to contribute to the existent risk disclosure literature by investigating the moderator effect of family ownership on this relationship.

The content analysis approach was used to collect data and determine the level of risk disclosure over the non-financial Jordanian firms listed on 1Amman Stock Exchange. The sample of this study contains 376 annual reports over four years from 2014 to 2017. It used the random effect regressions to examine the hypothesis of the study.

The results show that politically connected companies disclose less risk information than the unconnected ones in Jordan. The results also refer that family ownership contributes in mitigating the negative effect of the political connection on the level of corporate risk.

The results have implications for regulatory institutions such as the Jordan Securities Commission to take the negative effect of political connection in their consideration and impose further regulations to monitor this board’s attribute and control politicians’ domination on the board decisions.

The current study also contributes to the body of literature by investigating the effects of the political connections on the level of risk disclosure in the financial reports. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to examine the effect of the political connection on the risk disclosure practices. Moreover, the study is among the first studies that examine the moderating role of family ownership on such relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of voluntary risk management disclosure (VRMD) on firm value (FV).

This study uses content analysis approach to collect the VRMD data. FV is represented by three variables: market capitalization, Tobin’s Q and market to book value of equity ratio. Based on a sample of 395 firms listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia in 2011, this study uses multivariate statistical tests to examine the association between VRMD and FV.

Based on the regression analysis, this study found that the VRMD has a positive and significant relationship with FV. Even though the authors hypothesize that damaging voluntary risk management disclosure (DVRMD) will have a negative and significant relationship with FV, the regression analysis shows that the DVRMD is not significantly related to FV. As expected, the relationship between beneficial voluntary risk management disclosure (BVRMD) and FV is positive and significant. The findings provide evidence that should be of interest especially to firms in terms of deciding upon whether to provide or avoid disclosing voluntary risk management information to their stakeholders.

Notwithstanding the critical empirical findings, this study is limited to only focusing on a one year data. The authors acknowledge the fact that findings from a one year data might not be easily generalized to other time periods. The authors believe a stronger argument could be obtained from evidence based on a longitudinal study or data that incorporate multiple economic conditions. The study highlights the fact that risks management information is important to investors in Malaysia when they make their investments decisions.

To date, regulatory bodies emphasize more on financial risk management disclosure through the enforcement of MFRS 7; while non-financial risk information is less emphasized in current guidelines such as Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) (2012) and Recommended Practice Guide 5 (Revised), which only requires firms to disclose information about non-financial risk management without specific details. As this study has provided evidence on the significance of non-financial risk management disclosures in the capital market, this study could be useful for the regulatory bodies to develop more detailed guidelines on non-financial risk management disclosure in the future.

Most of prior literatures are found to focus on the study of factors that influence the VRMD (such as Linsley and Shrives, 2006; Abraham and Cox, 2007; Hassan et al., 2009; Ismail and Abdul Rahman, 2011). Studies about the effects of voluntary risk management information disclosure is however very scant. Miihkinen (2013) studied the effects of risk management disclosure on information asymmetry. This paper adds to Miihkinen (2013) by investigating the relationship between VRMD and FV. This paper is expected to be the first to investigate on the empirical usefulness of VRMD in a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between risk governance and bank performance in a country where disclosure of risk information is virtually voluntary.

Using 210 bank-year observations comprising hand-collected data for the period 2006-2012, the study uses regression analysis to test whether a significant relationship exists between risk governance and banks’ accounting- and market-based performance.

This paper investigates risk governance in terms of risk disclosure, number of risk committees and existence of a risk management unit, controlling for other corporate governance variables. Accounting-based performance is measured by return on equity and return on assets; market-based performance is measured by Tobin’s q and buy-and-hold returns. The results show that there is a significant relationship between risk governance and bank performance measures used in this study.

This paper complements the governance literature by incorporating agency and neo-institutional theory to provide robust evidence that risk monitoring and management are associated with bank performance, which has become extremely important following the global financial crisis (2007-2008).

Empirical evidence in this paper suggests that risk governance characteristics can be used as channels to improve bank performance. In addition, stakeholders may find these results useful in selecting their preferred bank.

The uniqueness of this paper lies in its country setting. Most studies on governance and performance involve developed countries. This paper’s contribution is to examine the association of risk governance characteristics for both accounting-based and market-based performance in a developing economy setting, with virtually voluntary compliance mechanisms in place.

This paper aims to empirically examine the relationship between disclosure and risk-taking of banks in Ghana. The study also aims to gain an insight into the general risk-taking behaviour of banks in Ghana for the period 2007-2011.

The study used panel regression model and relate risk-taking to disclosure, controlling for bank size, profitability, liquidity and treasury bill rate. Disclosure scores from a disclosure index are used as a measure of disclosure, likewise Z-score as a measure of total risk. Also, the ratio of provisions for loan losses to gross loans by each bank for each year was used to examine the general risk-taking behaviour of Ghanaian banks.

The study revealed that the election year and the immediate subsequent year are characterized by an increase in non-performing loans. Greater disclosure is associated with more risk-taking and vice versa. This implies that market discipline is not effective in Ghana. Treasury bill rate, profitability and liquidity were found to be economically meaningful and statistically significant in influencing risk-taking of banks in Ghana.

As there are relatively few studies conducted in this area, specifically among banks in Ghana, this study will broaden the scope of the literature on disclosure and risk-taking by providing empirical evidence.