Abstract: The study provides an in-depth analysis of a certain type of disclosure, which is a forward-looking disclosure (FOLD) for annual reports of a sample of listed conventional banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. In addition, it investigates whether some firm characteristics namely, (firm size, firm performance, financial leverage and firm age) are determinants of the level of FOLD. A library of FOLD with three dimensions namely, (opportunities & expectations), (risks & uncertainty) and (related financial information) has been developed to measure the level of FOLD in the banks’ annual reports. Multiple linear regression analysis with three models (one for each dimension) is conducted while, multivariate multiple regression has been run for FOLD Model. The findings of the study show that the most common type of FOLD is related financial information followed by, (opportunities & expectations) and the latest is (risks & uncertainty). Moreover, the results of multiple linear regression analysis have shown different results concerning the effect of four firm characteristics on three dimensions of the level of FOLD (opportunities & expectations), (risks & uncertainty) and (related financial information). While, the results of multivariate multiple regression report that firm size, firm performance and firm age have a significant effect on the level of FOLD, in contrast, firm leverage has an insignificant effect. Another interesting finding, from running multivariate multiple regression with interaction analysis, is firm leverage has a significant effect on the level of FOLD if it joins with other independent variables such as firm size and firm performance. To best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that develops a special library of FOLD with three dimensions. |
