Factors affecting the quality of accounting disclosures provided in the annual reports for Jordanian firms

Abstract

This study aims to cover the factors that affect Jordanian companies’ annual reports’ accounting disclosures within the country's regulatory framework. This study analyses the qualitative content of accounting disclosures in Jordanian service and manufacturing companies to ascertain whether Jordanian law affects the company's capacity to provide adequate disclosures to stakeholders and whether industry type affects disclosure quality. The content analysis results indicated that Jordanian firms are aware of the laws and regulations governing the preparation of annual reports. Still, corporate governance rules are insufficient. Furthermore, the results revealed that annual report preparers are committed to mandatory and voluntary but provide inadequate CSR disclosures. The findings showed that service firms outperform manufacturing companies in terms of paying attention to narrating events and taking action to reduce their impact. Multiple factors influence the quality of accounting disclosures in Jordan. As for a limitation, content analysis inherently involves some level of subjectivity in interpreting and coding data, which could introduce bias into the analysis. Nevertheless, conducting targeted studies on particular sectors within Jordan could yield valuable information regarding industry-specific disclosure procedures and obstacles, which could be a future study.