The Effect of Corporate Characteristics on Disclosure Quality in Corporate Annual Reports: A Meta-Analysis

Posted: 9 Jul 1998

See all articles by Kamran Ahmed

Kamran Ahmed

La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University

Abstract

Considerable volume of research have been undertaken over the last 30 years assessing the effect of organisational size, listing status, leverage and audit firm size on disclosure quality in corporate annual reports. By applying meta-analysis techniques, the purposes of this paper are to evaluate prior results and to examine whether variation in the results is purely artifactual or is moderated by external factors such as differences in environments and disclosure index construction. Using data from 22 studies, the results show that highly significant and positive relationships exist between the four corporate characteristics and disclosure quality. However, a significant portion of the variation in results could not be explained by sampling error, which means that differences in socio-economic environments and disclosure index construction have moderating effects on the relationships. The results suggest that international harmonisation efforts will be futile if the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) ignores environmental differences between countries in setting accounting standards.

JEL Classification: M41

Suggested Citation

Ahmed, Kamran, The Effect of Corporate Characteristics on Disclosure Quality in Corporate Annual Reports: A Meta-Analysis . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=106309

Kamran Ahmed (Contact Author)

La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University ( email )

Kingsbury Drive
Melbourne, VIC 3086
Australia
0403038387 (Phone)
3105 (Fax)

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
2,930
PlumX Metrics