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This paper aims to investigate the relationship between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital as a direct relationship and as an indirect relationship mediated by information asymmetry. It provides evidence from Jordan as a developing economy.

The sample was selected from the companies listed in the first market of the Amman Stock Exchange during the period 2010–2019. Four exclusion criteria were used in selecting the companies for analysis.

The findings show that the cost of capital and information asymmetry are negatively affected by voluntary disclosure, as well as that the cost of capital is positively affected by information asymmetry. In addition, information asymmetry does not mediate the relationship between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital.

This research looks at the mediating effect of information asymmetry in the relationship between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital; thus, it provides new explanations about it using empirical evidence from a developing economy. As a necessary consequence, this research has the potential to significantly contribute to the existing body of knowledge and literature in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate governance on voluntary disclosure of different types of information in annual reports of Malaysian listed firms.

A linear regression model is used to test the association between the level of voluntary disclosure of five key information categories and corporate governance. The sample consists of 100 firms over three different socio‐economic periods: 1996, 2001 and 2006.

There are significant increases in all the key information categories with better communication most pronounced between 1996 and 2001, and a noticeably lower level of communication growth between 2001 and 2006. The strength of a firm's corporate governance structure clearly influences the voluntary disclosure of information relating to corporate and strategic directions, directors and senior management, financial and capital markets, forward‐looking projections and corporate social responsibility in 2001 and 2006.

The use of a governance index to arrive at an overall corporate governance score has the potential to mask major underlying relationships of individual governance attributes. The use of the self‐constructed disclosure indices may also omit certain information items that are employed in other prior studies. Moreover, the different categories of disclosures are solely constructed on the information disclosed in the annual reports without considering the alternative avenues.

The results will assist regulators and policy‐makers to better understand the impact of corporate governance on the voluntary disclosure of different types of corporate information in Malaysia.

This study generates evidence of the changing scene of management voluntary disclosure practices embedded in the corporate governance framework in a developing country with an emerging capital market.

The purpose of this study is to measure the extent of voluntary disclosure in the 2009 annual reports of 108 Shariah‐compliant companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange. The study aims to investigate three categories of voluntary disclosure: overall, conventional and Islamic disclosure.

Voluntary disclosure was measured using a self‐constructed index consisting of 132 items overall, 86 for conventional and 46 for Islamic information items. Annual reports were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t‐tests.

Results suggest that the mean overall voluntary disclosure by Shariah‐compliant companies is 15 percent, but 17 percent and 13 percent for the conventional and Islamic items, respectively. Voluntary disclosure of conventional items is comparable to extant studies, and higher than Islamic items.

The study uses annual reports from 2009 because they were the most recent data available on the listed companies at the beginning of the study. Since this study was undertaken before the Shariah Advisory Council of the Capital Market Authority was established on January 1, 2012, this imposes a limitation. Future study should replicate this study to assess differences with the existence of the Council.

The findings provide evidence that Shariah‐complaint companies lack voluntary disclosure, especially Islamic disclosure information. As a result, the findings should be useful to lawmakers in Kuwait for improving overall disclosure practices by Shariah‐compliant companies. Preparers may use the findings to match the amount of information in their annual reports with other companies to ensure capital sourcing. Investors may use the findings for understanding disclosure behavior of Shariah‐compliant companies in Kuwait. Such findings may assist them to diversify investment portfolios.

This study contributes to extending the Kuwaiti literature on disclosure, and fills a gap in empirical studies on Shariah‐compliant disclosure practices.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical evidence concerning the influence of Corporate governance and voluntary disclosures in annual reports: a post-International Financial Reporting Standards adoption evidence from an emerging capital market.

Data were collected from the annual reports of all 22 listed non-financial firms over a five-year period. Using content analysis, the audited annual reports of the firms were scored on the extent of overall and four specific types of voluntary disclosures made. The panel data obtained were analyzed using a generalized ordinary least squares regression model.

The findings of the study show that voluntary disclosures among the firms are low even after the adoption of IFRS. Corporate governance attributes of board size and board leadership structure are significant determinants of the extent of voluntary disclosures made by the firms. However, board independence and auditor type exhibit only a significant positive effect on voluntary financial and forward-looking information disclosures.

Firms’ voluntary information disclosure and governance variables were restricted to those in annual reports, which may partially reflect the reality of firms’ disclosure and governance practices.

The present study offers useful insights to regulators of the capital market to strengthen monitoring of firms to ensure strict adherence to corporate governance best practice guidelines as a means of improving information environment.

This study is one of the very few ones in Africa, especially in the context of Ghana Stock Exchange, to use post-IFRS data and examine a disaggregated voluntary disclosure by firms.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of voluntary disclosure in the companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange. Voluntary disclosure refers to the discretionary release of financial and non-financial information which companies are not obliged to disclose by a standard-setting accounting body. In particular, this paper analyses the effect that certain determinants (leverage, firm size, sector auditor, performance and ownership concentration) could have on voluntary information disclosed by Italian listed companies. In order to do this, 203 annual reports of Italian listed companies for the year 2012 were analysed.

To assess the extent of voluntary disclosure, an index is created and used as a dependent variable in an OLS model to understand the relationship between the above-mentioned determinants. The disclosure score is composed mainly of 38 items per firm (a total of 7,714 items were collected and analysed) regarding firm performance, general information, forward-looking information, human capital, research and development projects, stock market information, segment reporting information and other information. In order to differentiate the information presented in annual reports, a score was assigned to each item on the index (2 points if an item was reported in qualitative and quantitative terms, 1 point if the item was reported in qualitative terms, 0 points if the item was absent). The score is not weighted because all items are equally important for the research purpose. Repeated information is considered only once.

According to the research findings, human resource information is the voluntary disclosure item reported with the highest frequency, and both firm size and auditors positively affect the total amount of voluntary information disclosed by Italian listed companies. Financial firms provide a lower level of voluntary disclosure than do industrial firms.

The paper contributes in improving knowledge about Italian firms’ voluntary disclosure of firm-specific determinants, analysing a wide number of items provided in 2012 annual reports.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the auditor in enhancing the market consequences of voluntary disclosure in East Asian countries that have different reporting environments. This study also investigates the effect of quality of the reporting environment on the role of the auditor in enhancing market consequences of voluntary disclosure.

The methodology used in this research is multiple regressions using the least square method. This research uses East Asian countries context that covers India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand with cross-sectional data during 2016. This research uses four measurements of market consequences, namely, cumulative abnormal return (CAR), volatility of return, bid-ask spread and trading volume.

The results show that voluntary disclosure gives positive consequences to the capital market by increasing the CAR, volatility of return and average trading volume, and decreasing asymmetric information. The results also show that auditor plays a significant role in increasing the credibility of voluntary disclosure by increasing the market consequences of disclosure. The role of the auditor in increasing the effect of voluntary disclosure is higher in a country that adopts international best practice in financial reporting.

The findings of this study need to be interpreted with caution due to several limitations. Although the measurement of voluntary disclosure used in this study is relatively more complete compared to previous research, there are still much voluntary information disclosed that are not included in the checklist. Moreover, this study only considers voluntary disclosure in the annual report. Therefore, future studies can develop a more comprehensive measurement of voluntary disclosure and use sources of information beyond the annual report.

This study shows that in a reporting environment that is less transparent as in the conditions of countries in East Asia, voluntary disclosure and the role of the auditor in increasing value of voluntary disclosure for market participants is crucial. Companies need to increase their voluntary disclosures as they become additional provisions in improving the reporting environment and consider the result of this study when choosing the auditor. Second, audit quality is more important in increasing the credibility of voluntary disclosure in countries that adopt international best practices in financial reporting. The result of this study implies that audit quality is a complementary mechanism of the reporting environment.

This study expands the literature of the role of the auditor on the market consequences of voluntary disclosures and explores the role of the auditor in different reporting environment across countries in East Asia. This study shows that auditor increases the credibility of voluntary disclosure in the different context of accounting and auditing practices.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of voluntary disclosure on information asymmetry between investors and the average information content of subsequent the earnings announcement.

The authors use empirical methodology relying on multiple regression analyses. The authors estimate models of trading volume and stock returns around the earnings’ release date as a function of voluntary disclosures, measured using information in the 8-K statements.

Voluntary disclosures prior to the earnings release date increase trading volume related to stock returns. In addition, voluntary disclosures also reduce stock price movement around that date.

The results indicate that voluntary disclosures increase trading volume related to stock returns around the earnings release date. Such increases indicate increased differential precision among investors, demonstrating that voluntary disclosures increase differences in opinion among investors. The reduced stock price movement around the earnings release date also show that voluntary disclosures reduce the information content of earnings. One limitation is that the measure of voluntary disclosures does not consider the variation in the information content of individual disclosures.

Firms who make voluntary disclosures will need to carefully consider how to structure such releases to minimize asymmetry between investors. Investors should pay greater attention to finding out, and interpreting, voluntary disclosures by firms.

Regulators have previously expressed concern about leveling the playing field between more and less informed investors. The results showing increased differences in information as a result of voluntary disclosures provide valuable insights as regulators debate the balance of mandated and voluntary disclosure.

This is the first study to investigate the effect of voluntary disclosures on information asymmetry among investors using trading volume and, consequently, the first to find increased differences among investors that result from those voluntary disclosures. The paper is also the first to use a direct measure of voluntary disclosure developed by Cooper et al. to demonstrate the negative relation between voluntary disclosure and the average informativeness of earnings announcements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of market and organizational determinants on the voluntary disclosure level of Egyptian companies.

Uses a disclosure index of voluntary disclosure that is based upon the following information categories: strategic information; financial information; non‐financial information; and future prospect information to rate the level of disclosure. Multivariate analysis, voluntary disclosure determinants: earnings quality; ownership structure; competition intensity; information asymmetry, and possible relationships with disclosure level provide the basis for discussion.

It is found that the level of voluntary disclosure in the emerging market of Egypt ranges from low to moderate level. There is no significant relationship between a company's voluntary disclosure level and earnings quality and competition intensity, while this relationship is significant for information asymmetry and ownership structure.

The results are constrained by the proxies that represent non‐financial factors of the market.

This paper extends prior studies on voluntary disclosure in Egypt by looking at a comprehensive set of market and organizational factors that might affect the disclosure level, based on a structured disclosure index of strategic, financial and non‐financial, and future prospect information. The findings would help boards of directors to explain the adoption of certain disclosure strategies, and understand the corporate disclosure behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of environmental disclosure during periods of voluntarism and during periods with changed statutory requirements. More specific, the question is how volume and content variety of environmental disclosure in financial statements are immediately affected by statutory regulations.

In order to compare the effects of such regulations with the development in environmental disclosure during periods without any changes in statutory requirements, a longitudinal study is conducted to test five specific hypotheses. A quasi‐experiment with pre‐ and post‐testing of disclosure volume and content variety is carried out to test the effects of the statutory changes.

The most important lesson from this paper is the significance of the voluntary approach to improve the variety of environmental disclosure. The present paper supports the claim of voluntarism that companies will meet the heterogeneous requirements of their stakeholders without any governmental regulations. No statutory regulations are needed to make the companies increase and adapt their environmental disclosure to the demand from their stakeholders and legitimate their existence towards society. The present paper has revealed that the regulation approach has a significant, immediate effect on mandatory environmental disclosure only, and that companies do not fully comply with such statutory regulations.

There is no universal notion of voluntarism. Different countries and societies have different legal requirements and political cultures regarding voluntarism. That is, voluntary reporting in Norway is affected by the national statutory requirements and may be underpinned by a certain set of societal responsibilities that may or may not exist elsewhere. Further research is needed to see whether these findings are readily generalized or whether they should only be interpreted in light of local considerations.

This is the first comprehensive study of the development of environmental disclosure in Norwegian companies. A total of 822 financial statements and annual reports, during the period between 1987 and 2005, are analysed.

The study explores the relationship between information overloading and the complexity of reporting. In particular, it investigates whether voluntary information in a firm annual report is associated with its readability. Likewise, it examines how a firm's profitability and earnings management practices impact the nexus of voluntary disclosure and readability.

It uses the annual reports of the Egyptian nonfinancial firms listed in the EGX 100 index from 2010 to 2018. The readability of the annual report is measured automatically using the LIX index, and a predeveloped voluntary disclosure index is used to measure the level of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports.

The results reveal that the readability of annual reports is a negative function of voluntary disclosure, suggesting that Egyptian firms with more voluntary disclosure are likely to have more complex (i.e. less readable) annual reports. Likewise, less profitable firms and firms with earning management practices increase voluntary information in their annual reports, resulting in an adverse impact on their reporting readability.

It focuses only on the annual reports of Egyptian firms and considers a firm’s overall voluntary information rather than a particular area of voluntary disclosure. It introduces a code to measure the readability of Arabic-written texts, which can be applied to different areas of disclosure.

Policymakers in Egypt are encouraged to develop enforceable regulations to control voluntary disclosure in annual reports. Egyptian investors should view the practice of higher voluntary disclosure skeptically as its aim may be to divert attention from a firm's poor performance and earnings management practice.

The study is the first evidence from Egypt on the effect of information overloading, proxied by voluntary disclosure, on the readability of reporting. Likewise, it contributes to methodological development in measuring the readability of Arabic-written annual reports.