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Determinants of voluntary disclosure in Swedish corporate annual reports

This study examines if three hypothesized variables affect the extent of corporate strategic information, i.e. voluntary information, in corporate annual reports, specifically in Sweden in the year of 2012. The variables deemed appropriate to the Swedish environment, i.e. firm size, ownership dispersion and performance, were retrieved from previous disclosure research conducted in a Swedish context (Cook, 1989; Adrem, 1999), as well as relevant theoretical consideration. The statistical analysis conducted in this thesis suggests that firm size is significantly positively related to the extent of strategic corporate information in Swedish listed firms’ corporate annual reports. The result hence confirms the expectation that larger listed firms to a larger extent disclose strategic corporate information, i.e. voluntary information, in their corporate annual reports. No positive relation was found between the variables performance or ownership dispersion and the extent of strategic corporate information. The results of this thesis are interpreted to suggest that asymmetric information and agency costs are important determinants of the extent of strategic corporate information, i.e. voluntary information, in Swedish corporate annual reports. Larger firms seem to reduce agency costs and narrow the information asymmetry by increasing the level of information disclosed.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-230442
Date January 2014
CreatorsThoresson, Alexander, Niléhn, Pontus
PublisherUppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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