Title: Voluntary disclosure about innovation and technological choices by Tunisian listed companies

Authors: Mounira Sidhom Hamed; Mohamed Ali Omri

Addresses: Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Tunis, Campus Universitaire, El Manar BP 248, El Manar II, 2092, Tunis, Tunisia ' College of Business Administration, Northern Border University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract: In recent years, innovation and technology has become a powerful tool for value creation in many firms. Consequently, investors are strongly interested in obtaining information about these activities. Nonetheless, mandatory accounting information is very limited in this area. The aim of this paper is to explore technology and innovation (I&T) voluntary disclosure of Tunisian listed companies by applying the content analysis method to their annual report. The study covers 18 firms during a period from the first year of application of new Tunisian accounting system (1997) until the year 2007. Results show that I&T information finds its place in the annual reports of Tunisian listed companies but in a relatively low and dispersed way. Then, it is the information about innovation process and especially about technological watch that is most commonly reported.

Keywords: innovation disclosure; technology disclosure; Tunisia; listed companies; annual reports; voluntary disclosure; content analysis; financial accounting; value creation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMFA.2013.058661

International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, 2013 Vol.5 No.4, pp.379 - 390

Published online: 21 Oct 2014 *

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