![]() | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract There is an increasing importance in the level of non-financial information disclosure in financial reporting. So, the relationship between the level of non-financial disclosure and corporate characteristics considered the main objective for more than 40 years. There are many definitions of disclosure but we can summarize them in this definition: disclosure defines as the publication of any types of information within the annual reports, and this information should be necessary, relevant and material to different groups of users in making their judgments and decis ions about their investments in the fire It is common to divide firm characteristics into three groups (Alsaeed, 2006):a) structure- related variables such as firm size, leverage, ownership dispersion and firm age b) performance- related variables such as profitability (profit margin), return on equity and liquidity C) market- related variables such as cross listing, industry type and audit firm size. Information in the annual report can be classified into two types of information: backward-looking information and forward-looking information. Backward-looking information is related to past financial operations or transactions and their related disclosures. While forward-looking information is related to current and future forecasts operations or transactions that help users of information (investors) to evaluate a firm’s future performance (Hussainey,2004).Forward-looking information looks at the future and contains two types of information: financial and non-financial information, and CICA (Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants) framewor (2001), defined forward-looking information completes of financial and non-financial. |