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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incidence of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) on stock market assessment of intangibles and voluntary disclosure about innovation.

The authors develop three regression models. The first model investigates the stock market valuation of intangible assets and disclosure about innovation. The second model desegregates earnings to assess the relevance of components related to intangibles. The third model investigates how intangible expenses and voluntary disclosure affect analysts forecast dispersion.

Results show that the value relevance of intangible assets and expenses improves with the adoption of IAS 38. Overall, results indicate a decrease in the value relevance of voluntary disclosure about innovation under IFRS. More specifically, results suggest some overlap in the information content of mandated and voluntary disclosure for stock market valuation of intangible assets under IFRS. Findings also suggest that voluntary disclosure moderates market's assessment of expensed intangibles under both Canadian GAAP and IFRS.

IAS 38 requires entities to recognize an intangible asset if certain criteria are met and to disclose specific information about it. In such a context, market participants may refer to a greater extent to financial reporting and to a lesser extent to voluntary disclosure when valuating intangibles.

Managers will have an incentive to better target their communications to ensure a degree of complementarity with financial reporting. In this sense, this study contributes to the voluntary disclosure literature.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure about intangibles and evaluate the impact of IFRS on this matter.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the provision of voluntary International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) disclosures in the pre‐adoption period has affected the IFRS transition process of UK listed firms. The study also seeks to identify the motivation of firms with financing needs to provide voluntary IFRS disclosures and determines whether the provision of voluntary IFRS disclosures in the pre‐adoption period leads to more value relevant numbers.

The study utilises logistic and linear regressions to test the hypothetical relations set up in the study. The categorisation of firms into voluntary and non‐voluntary IFRS disclosers is based on the (non‐mandatory) provision of material IFRS information prior to adoption about the upcoming adoption of IFRSs in 2005. Company categorization is particularly based on the construction of an index similar to the disclosure index formulated by the Center for International Financial Analysis and Research.

With regard to IFRS transition, firms that provided voluntary IFRS disclosures prior to adoption display a greater positive change in equity and earnings. Non‐voluntary IFRS disclosers exhibit a greater positive change in leverage and a decrease in liquidity. Voluntary IFRS disclosers exhibit higher equity and debt financing needs and tend to be audited by a big auditor and be cross‐listed.

The study implies that the need to obtain financing on better terms would motivate managers to provide voluntary (IFRS) disclosures to show that they are familiar with the upcoming regulatory change and ready to implement it when it becomes effective. The provision of voluntary IFRS disclosures leads to more value relevant accounting measures, suggesting that less information asymmetry would lead to the disclosure of informative and higher quality accounting information assisting investors in making informed judgements.

Knowing about different firms' transition experience would assist accounting standard setters in issuing explanatory IFRS guidance in order to lead to an efficient transition to IFRSs for countries that intend to adopt IFRSs or perform an accounting change. The examination of IFRS transition for firms that have experienced the change is important and would provide insight to firms considering this option. The findings further assist accounting academics and students, accountants and investors in their effort to study the motivation for providing voluntary disclosures as well as the magnitude and materiality of IFRS transition on companies' financial accounts.

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.

The present study seeks to paint the current state of voluntary disclosure of internet financial reporting (IFR) in Bangladesh as an example of an emerging economy and to investigate empirically some company characteristics as determinants of such practice.

Using a sample of 83 listed companies in Bangladesh in the year 2009 and the disclosure index of Deller et al., Marston, Xiao et al. and Marston and Polei and comments from the users and investors of Bangladesh, the study employs statistical analysis to investigate the association between a number of company characteristics and the extent of voluntary disclosure of IFR.

The findings revealed that only 29.12 percent (83) companies had web sites out of the 285 listed companies and only 33.34 percent (28) companies' provided financial information. Out of seven variables, only big audit firms and non‐family ownership variables were significantly associated with the levels of voluntary disclosure. Another important result revealed that despite the mandatory requirements of having audit committee in Bangladesh, the companies without the audit committee were disclosing voluntary information more and it raised the question on the lack of regulatory enforcement in Bangladesh.

The scope of this study is limited to a single country; it would be interesting to replicate this study to a group of emerging countries which have many similarities to the Bangladesh environment.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have been conducted on IFR in a South Asian emerging country, in particular Bangladesh. The study also is the first of its kind to examine the whole population of a period in any country which enhances contribution to IFR literature. Unlike the prior studies conducted in emerging countries, the study contributes not only to the present state of IFR by the listed companies in Bangladesh but also the connectivity problem between the dream and reality of the digital Bangladesh concept. The study also finds that the companies' IFR practices are not influenced by “Digital Bangladesh” concept.

This paper aims to explore the potential for disclosure recommendations given by authoritative supervisory bodies to reduce information asymmetry between the management and shareholders.

There is only meagre existing evidence concerning firms' responses to disclosure recommendations. This paper uses descriptive statistics and OLS regression analysis to test if firms behave more similarly to voluntary or to mandatory disclosure when they follow the Committee of European Securities Regulators disclosure recommendation for International Financial Reporting Standards transition. Second, it analyses the determinants of and incentives for recommended transition disclosure.

Recommended disclosure is documented to have more mandatory characteristics than purely voluntary disclosure. Moreover, the certain disclosure incentives for managers and corporate governance factors prove to have an impact on recommended disclosure. Firm size, growth prospects, and independent board members associate positively with recommended disclosure whereas there is a negative relationship between financial leverage and recommended disclosure.

The paper does not provide evidence on the cost differences between disclosure laws and authoritative disclosure recommendations. This could be examined by future research.

Authoritative disclosure recommendations reduce information asymmetry. In some cases they may be a faster and more cost‐efficient way to achieve disclosure enhancements than regulation.

This paper is the first to explore the efficiency of authoritative disclosure recommendations in situations where urgent disclosure improvements are needed. The results have implications for regulatory bodies evaluating different strategies to reduce asymmetric information in these situations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of Research and Development (R&D) disclosures on earnings management practices.

This study has been conducted by using a longitudinal archival data set of French companies belonging to the CAC All-Tradable index and instrumental variable estimations.

The results of the research highlight the moderating effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption and the financial crisis in this relationship. It also shows that R&D disclosures are negatively associated with earnings management. The findings also show that the IFRS adoption is complementary in its monitoring role of managerial behavior in reducing earnings management in the presence of R&D disclosures. Furthermore, this study finds that the negative effect of R&D disclosures on earnings management is more prevalent during the global financial crisis.

This study examined the consequences of the voluntary disclosure of R&D information in the French context. It introduces a measurement for the disclosure of R&D activities in annual reports through the construction of an R&D disclosure index.

The purpose of this paper is to report the impact of the Chinese capital market split equity (SE) reform in 2005 on the corporate financial transparency of Chinese listed companies.

Using an International Financial Reporting Standards‐based checklist, the paper investigates whether the post‐reform 2005 annual reports of reformed companies improved transparency compared to pre‐reform 2004 reports. The transparency of the reformed companies was also compared to a control group of companies unreformed on December 31, 2005.

Results indicate that the SE reform increased corporate disclosures. Reformed companies had higher mandatory and voluntary disclosures in their post‐reform 2005 annual reports compared to their pre‐reform 2004 annual reports. In addition, the improvement in mandatory and voluntary disclosures for reformed companies is greater than that of the unreformed control group.

The SE reform provides a unique natural experimental setting in which to examine the impact of the SE reform, with its associated change in ownership structure and corporate governance, on corporate disclosure.

The results of this paper suggest that the SE reform has had a positive effect on corporate financial transparency in China, thereby indicating the positive response to regulation in this emerging market. Further, the results suggest that as the proportion of government ownership falls, management has increased incentive to voluntarily supply additional information to the market.

The SE reform is unique to China and this paper is the first to report on financial reporting disclosure implications of this reform.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness on the level of internet financial reporting (IFR) disclosure practices.

The sample consists of 152 listed financial companies in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Based on agency theory, the authors posit that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness influence corporate IFR disclosure practice. Content analysis approach, based on an un-weighted index of 35 IFR items is used to measure the level of IFR disclosure. Thus, multiple regression analysis is utilized to analyse the results of this paper.

The results show that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness has significant influence on the level of IFR disclosure.

One potential limitation of this paper is that the sample is drawn only from the GCC listed financial companies. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to other than the financial institutions.

The finding(s) highlights the importance of board of directors and audit committee characteristics in corporate governance and in the development of financial markets that foster IFR disclosure.

This paper extends previous IFR disclosure studies by considering both the role of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness score in examining IFR disclosure.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the reporting practices on intangible assets from the perspective of a post-transition economy. The chapter explores the significance of intangibles and the content of the disclosures provided by companies in annual reports.

The analysis is qualitative in nature. Annual reports of selected Slovene publicly traded companies are analysed. The research is based on the analysis of required disclosures by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and an analysis of voluntary disclosures provided by companies for the 2007–2011 financial years.

The results indicate that intangibles are less significant in comparison with publicly traded companies from traditionally developed economies. The analysis of disclosures reveals that companies provide almost exclusively the disclosures required by IFRS, while voluntary disclosures are not provided. Furthermore, results indicate deficiencies in financial reporting practices related to required disclosures.

The analysis is conducted on a small sample of companies. This is a consequence of the fact that a limited number of companies is trading on Ljubljana Stock Exchange. In the primary and standard quotation of shares, only 25 companies are present.

Since a growing stream of research emphasises the importance of intangibles for companies’ performance, the findings indicate possibilities for improvement of financial reporting.

The research findings contribute to existing research in the field of accounting for intangibles from the perspective of a post-transition economy. More studies of this kind in transition and post-transition economies using IFRS have yet to be performed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles of country-level characteristics versus firm-level characteristics in explaining variations in firms’ voluntary strategy disclosures.

Strategy disclosure in annual reports is measured using an index of 40 items derived from the strategy literature. The sample is 204 large companies from 12 Asian and European countries in 2005. The disclosure index is subdivided into four underlying latent constructs using principal components analysis. The authors then use OLS regression to test whether total disclosure score, and the latent constructs are associated with country-level characteristics and firm-level characteristics.

The authors find that total strategy disclosures are more prevalent in stakeholder-oriented countries, in countries with greater levels of financial transparency, but are less prevalent in countries with a culture of secrecy, and strategy disclosures are more likely to occur in companies with greater economic incentives to disclose, with a Big 4 auditor or which are listed in New York. These findings also occur but not as consistently with the four latent constructs.

The sample used in this paper comprises large public companies, so the findings may not be generalisable to all companies. Nevertheless, the findings demonstrate that both country- and firm-level variables matter in explaining voluntary strategy disclosure.

The IASB released an IFRS Practice Statement in 2010, which recommends, but does not require, disclosure of information about corporate strategy in Management Commentary statements. The findings of this paper may help inform the issue of whether regulators should make strategy disclosures mandatory.

The paper contains the first detailed examination of the roles of country-level characteristics versus firm-level characteristics in explaining variations in corporate voluntary strategy disclosures.