Characteristics of companies that influence their voluntary disclosure of performance indicators

• Autor(a) principal: Klann, Roberto Carlos
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: Beuren, Ilse Maria
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng; por
• Título da fonte: BBR. Brazilian Business Review (English edition. Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.bbronline.com.br/index.php/bbr/article/view/308
• topic: Voluntary disclosure; performance indicators; agency theory; signaling theory; Disclosure voluntário; indicadores de desempenho; teoria da agência; teoria da sinalização

The purpose of the study is to analyze whether characteristics such as size, activity sector and economic-financial performance influence companies to disclose accounting performance indicators in the form of voluntary disclosurein their annual reports. A descriptive research with quantitative approach was conducted through Standardized Financial Statements (DFPs) of 2008 of 90 companies listed in the New Corporate Governance Market of BM&FBovespa. Having as a reference the research of Watson, Shrives and Marston (2002), based on these statements, performance indicators related to Agency and Signaling Theory and voluntary disclosure were calculated. Considering the dichotomous nature (yes/no) of the dependent variable (disclosureof accounting indicators), and the fact that independent variables (profitability and return on investment, leverage, liquidity, efficiency and activity sector) contain so many categorical data such as value, Watson, Shrives and Marston (2002) used Stepwise Logistic Regression to test research hypotheses, which was also used in this study, to determine which independent variables explain disclosure better. It is concluded that some variables can, in a way, influence voluntary disclosure, even though no sufficiently strong statistical relations have been found. The most significant variables presented by the logistic regression model were the activity sector and operating margin when only some industry groups are analyzed.