Title: The influence of firm characteristics on disclosure of financial ratios in annual reports of Turkish firms listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange

Authors: Ali Uyar; Merve Kılıç

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Fatih University, Buyukcekmece Kampusu, 34520, Buyukcekmece, Istanbul, Turkey. ' Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Fatih University, Buyukcekmece Kampusu, 34520, Buyukcekmece, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract: This study extends prior research by investigating the influence of firm characteristics on voluntary disclosure of financial ratios in the annual reports of Turkish listed companies. The sample consists of industrial firms listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). The firms' annual reports were downloaded from their corporate websites. As methodology, content analysis was utilised to determine the financial ratio disclosure level of the firms. The findings revealed that Turkish listed firms disclose, on the average, 5.37 financial ratios in their annual reports. Count data regression models (Poisson and Negative binomial) were used to test the hypotheses. The results of multivariate analyses indicate that firm size, auditor size, profitability and ownership diffusion have significant positive association with voluntary disclosure level of financial ratios, while leverage does not.

Keywords: voluntary disclosure; financial ratios; firm characteristics; Turkey; financial disclosure; annual reports; financial reporting.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAAPE.2012.046603

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation, 2012 Vol.8 No.2, pp.137 - 156

Received: 11 Dec 2010
Accepted: 02 Jun 2011
Published online: 30 Jul 2014 *

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