Strategy Review of Impression Management of Stakeholders by Disclosure of Annual Reports

Abstract

Disclosure of companies’ information, which is not easily available for stakeholders, is incomplete and impartial. When the disclosure is done deliberately, managers exclude and hide some parts, or present some other parts unclear to protect their jobs. This is called impression management of stakeholders. This study aims at strategy review of impression management of voluntary disclosure at current state. This requires measuring the effects of circumstances of current performances, financial distress and family ownership rates on voluntary disclosure measure, and then, on future performances, regarding stakeholders’ understanding of disclosed information. The statistical population consists of companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange. The findings from hypotheses tests of multivariate regressions showed that current performance and the level of companies’ financial distress have significantly positive relationships with the level of voluntary disclosure of information. Also, there is significantly negative relationship between the rate of family ownership and the level of voluntary disclosure. However, there is no significant relationship between future performances and the level of voluntary disclosure.

Keywords

• impression management
• voluntary disclosure
• financial distress
• family ownership
• future performance