Corporate reporting and disclosures in the emerging capital market of Kuwait:the perceptions of users and preparers

The objective of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of users and preparers regarding financial disclosure practices in annual reports of Kuwaiti listed firms. To measure participants' views, a questionnaire survey was distributed in Kuwait between October and December 2012, to preparers (financial managers) and users (financial analysts) within Kuwaiti listed companies. The study compares between the perceptions of financial managers and financial analysts regarding disclosing information in corporate annual reports as well as the main obstacles facing the disclosure process and what the problems restricting the use of companies' annual reports. The study also seeks to investigate whether there is a perceived need for improving the usefulness of Kuwaiti companies' annual reports for decision-making. The results, based on 137 responses, indicate that accounting practices in Kuwaiti firms are firmly rooted in a decision-usefulness tradition with management and the board of directors viewed as the key audience for reporting information. Indeed, the annual reports of Kuwaiti listed companies are perceived as the most important sources of information. On the whole both users and preparers shared similar concerns regarding the volume of information contained within annual reports; however, their views differed in terms of identifying potential solutions. The results of the study are likely to have implications for decision makers, the academic community and accounting standard setters. 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd., part of Springer Nature

The effect of culture on Corporate Governance Practices in Nigeria

This study focuses on the effect of culture on the application of corporate governance practices in Nigeria. Corporate governance has been receiving serious attention in emerging markets over the past two decades. But relatively little attention has been given to the study on corporate governance in a country study. The current situations in Nigerian public and private sectors such as the corporate scandal resulting from Lever Brothers Nigeria plc, Siemens, Shell, Halliburton, and Cadbury Nigeria plc, have shown that the issue of fraud, corruption, and corporate scandals cannot be overlooked. Most top management, as this study argues, bring in beliefs acquired from their early childhood into their senior management roles and responsibilities. This study adopts a grounded theory and reports on the effect of culture on the implementation of corporate governance in Nigeria. Based on the interview with 32 staffs, this study identifies the effect of culture that shapes corporate governance and they include abuse of power by top management, weak legal framework, poor recruitment and ineffective control. Although having efficient corporate governance is worth pursuing, this depends on the power of top management, the strength of internal control procedures and the legal framework put in place by management

Corporate social reporting and board representation: evidence from the Kenyan banking sector

Corporate social reporting, Kenya, Banks, Board representation,

Intellectual capital disclosure: the Portuguese case

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that can explain practices of voluntary disclosure of information on intellectual capital (IC). This is an empirical quantitative study that seeks to examine the influence of certain firm characteristics (firm size, auditor type, ownership concentration, industry, proportion of non-executive directors (NEDs) on the board, chairman/CEO duality and audit committee) on intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) in Portuguese companies. ICD data for this longitudinal study were gathered from the annual reports of 32 Portuguese listed firms over 5 years using content analysis. The results of this study indicate that firm size and industry are explanatory factors of the level of disclosure of information on intellectual capital. One of the limitations of the empirical part of the study derives from choosing the content analysis method because it is subject to the subjectivity of interpretation. Another limitation is the small sample size and the application only to Portugal which reduces the ability to generalize the results to other settings. This study contributes to the IC literature, providing new empirical data covering the analysis of 5 years of disclosure related to corporate governance.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio