The impact of corporate attribites on the extent of mandatory disclosure and reporting by listed companies in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article reports the results of an empirical investigation of the degree of influence of eight corporate attributes on the extent of mandatory disclosure and reporting of 49 listed companies in Zimbabwe. Using a disclosure index which consisted of 214 mandated information items, the extent of mandatory disclosure be each sample company was quantified, and was used with other data specific to each sample company to test the relational hypotheses. Although several alternative specifications of multivariate regression models were developed and estimated, only the results of a robust regression analysis which indicated that company size, ownership structure, company age, multinational corporation affiliation, and profitability have statiscally significant positive effect on mandatory disclosure and reporting practices of the sample companies were reported. The quality of external audit, industry-type and liquidity were statistically insignificant.