Disclosure violations: does governance matter?

ABSTRACT Since 2004, the Jordanian Securities Commission (JSC) has been publishing annually a list of firms that violate disclosure requirements; however, despite these publications, the level of violations is continuing to rise. We hypothesize that ownership structure and board features can affect the level of violations of manufacturing and service firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The logit regression estimates assume that managerial and foreign ownership limit violation practices, while institutional ownership has no effect. It is also concluded that the characteristics of the board are not significantly related to the level of violations, apart from the audit committee and political connections, which have significant negative and positive impacts respectively.