H1.1: There is a positive relationship between the share of equity in government organizations and the extent of voluntary disclosure of information. H1.2: There is a positive relationship between the share of equity held by governmental organizations and the price informativeness of voluntary disclosure of information. H1.4: There is a positive relationship between the share of equity in financial intermediaries and the extent of voluntary disclosure of information.
H1.7: There is a positive relationship between the shares of listed industrial companies and the level of voluntary information disclosure. H1.10: There is a positive relationship between the shares of charitable foundations and the level of voluntary information disclosure. H1.13: There is a positive relationship between pension fund shares and the level of voluntary disclosure.
H2.4: There is a positive relationship between the size of the board and the degree of voluntary disclosure of information. H3.1: There is a positive relationship between the shares of monopolized industries and the extent of voluntary disclosure of price information.
Methodology and research design
We expect firms within higher ownership concentration monopolized industries to disclose higher rates of voluntary disclosure. Therefore, a higher informational price of voluntary disclosure can improve the positive image of their firms. Based on previous studies regarding the extent of voluntary disclosure (Botosan, 1997; Arrifin, 2001; Phua, 2003; Makhija & Patton, 2004; Ghazali & Weetman, 2006), items of voluntary disclosure were determined by matching annual reports with requirements Iranian intelligence.
They suggested that nine (9) items were redundant and repeated among the one hundred and seventy-nine (179) voluntary disclosure items. Most of the data was collected by hand and the voluntary disclosure index was based on the information listed companies provided in their annual reports. However, to determine the price information value of voluntary disclosure (PID), a questionnaire was designed.
The questionnaire was intended to elicit personal perceptions on the importance of voluntary disclosure items in relation to their effects on stock prices. Based on the dichotomous approach2, the total score for very significant to fairly significant items that are voluntarily disclosed in annual reports would, however, provide an informative score of the actual price of voluntary disclosure (PID) for each company. To determine the expected maximum items (points) of voluntary disclosure for each type of industry, we referred to firms.
Thus, the items that overlap by each type of industry reduce the final expected list of voluntary disclosures for that industry. The voluntary disclosure (VD) index for a firm is therefore the ratio of the total actual voluntary disclosure score assigned to that firm to the maximum voluntary disclosure score that a firm is expected to earn in relation to its type of industry (TVD/MVD) . To construct an index for the price informative voluntary disclosure (PID), we considered only the informative information voluntarily disclosed in sampled firms' annual reports.
And to determine the maximum expected price information score for each industry type, reference was made to their disclosure standards regarding the voluntary disclosure items perceived by stockbrokers and trade associations as moderately important to very important (average greater than 4). .
Results and analysis
Log of a firm's total assets (Makhija & Patton, 2004) and leverage by the ratio of the book value of total debt to the book value of the owner's stock (Arrifin, 2001). The analysis shows that PID is only affected by company size, board size and monopolized industries (see Table 5). The models examined were diagnosed based on the following assumptions: 1) linearity of the disclosure models;
For the first run of bivariate relationships with Pearson's correlation, none of the independent variables had a perfect correlation score of one (1). To detect the existence of heteroskedasticity, the residuals from the regression model were plotted against the predicted values of the disclosure rate and against each explanatory variable to determine whether the model's error terms had constant variance. The spread of the data did not appear to form a particular pattern and the data was scattered around the zero number.
Since monopolized industries are under constant government supervision, they would not want additional rules or government regulations imposed on them. The independent variables involving blockholders of the listed industrial companies, financial intermediary companies, charitable foundations and state-owned organizations are statistically significant only for the voluntary disclosure and voluntary disclosures not covered by the PID. However, the observation of Abdo Tabrizi (2004), the former Secretary General of the TSE, shows that the Iranian stock market is “inefficient” and suffers from low transparency.
Thus, none of the independent variables associated with ownership concentration have an impact on PID, and this means that the block holders do not come forward to reveal useful (PID) information. They also find that Singapore's Government Linked Companies (GLC) disclose a greater extent of voluntary disclosure as a means of mitigating agency problems. In general, companies meet the market's need for information by disclosing a lot of information (voluntary disclosure), but with less relevant content in order to play a safe game.
The behavior of institutional block holders can be explained by the fact that there are no major private investors in the market, and institutional block holders own almost 80 percent of all shares.
Limitations and suggestions
The results, however, contrast with studies conducted by Mitchell et al. (1995) and Chau and Gray (2002) who argue that there is a negative relationship between institutional ownership concentration and the extent of voluntary information disclosure. They know how to keep potential information either at the "confidential level" [by withholding any type of information (voluntary disclosure and non-PID)] or at the "competitive advantage level" [by providing a market of relevant and price-sensitive information (PID) that will disclosed their use of benefits]. It is assumed that companies that spend a lot of benefits would not want to disclose a lot of relevant information (PID) because more disclosures could put them at risk and at the same time upset the minority shareholders.
If these firms do not release any information, they will be perceived as possessing information from the public, and therefore the only solution is to offer a lot but less relevant information. The block holders therefore promote potential investors and try to increase public trust by revealing a greater amount of voluntary information. However, this study uses the importance professionals attach to the information to measure the extent or quantity of information made available to the public.
Future studies should be conducted to investigate the quality of information revealed from both perspectives, that is, more importantly, further studies should be done to elaborate the DTC measures in detail by developing proxies that be able to prove the consumption of the benefits. Another limitation of this study is that the data is from the 2004 financial year, which may be considered outdated by some.
However, it should be noted that the present study only examines the decisive factors influencing voluntary disclosure of information. Second, in 2005, the revised Iranian Corporate Governance Code was published, which sought to improve the reliability of financial reporting.
Conclusions
1 A comparison table of the issued shares with the starting shares 2 The general description of the invested companies, goals, results and plans 3 The comparison table of the company's share price with the industry index. 18 The comparison table for productivity indices with the opening of the year 19 Technology acquisition, practice, development and future. 15 The comparison of the fiscal income statement with the budget * 16 The comparative table of input to output.
1 The comparative table of company market value for the last 5 years 2 The comparative table of income statement for last 5 years * 3 The BEP analysis for last 5 years in a table of comparative statistics * 4 The EBT for last 5 years. 5 The comparative table of annual total output costs for the past 5 years 6 The comparative table of output with units sold by products for the past 5. 7 The comparative table of bonus paid for extra output or units sold for the past 5 years.
9 Comparison table of sales and production for the past 5 years 10 Comparison table of purchase values of manufactured goods per unit for the past. 11 Comparative table of revenue or net income for the last 5 years 12 Comparative table of labor efficiency for the last 5 years 13 Comparative table of quality improvement for the last 5 years 14 Comparative table of company production for 5 years. 18 Comparison table of outages for the past 5 years 19 Comparison table of production with the budget for the past 5 years 20 Comparison table of nominal with actual and unused capacities for the past.
22 Comparison table of the market value for the portfolio for the last 5 years 23 Comparison table of the cost of the portfolio with the market value for the last 5 years. 24 Comparison table of the company's return with the market for the last 5 years 25 Comparison table of the company's portfolio transactions with the market. 26 Comparative table of DPS and EPS for the last 5 years * 27 Comparative table of NAV for the last 5 years 28 Products sold in local markets for the last 5 years.
29 Exported products by price ($ US) for the last 5 years * 30 Comparison table of products sold with the budget for the last 5 years 31 Comparison table of portfolio composition for the last 5 years 32 Table of payments to state organizations for the last 5 years 33 Comparison table foreign currency dependence or imports for the past. 34 Comparison table of the main materials purchased in the last 5 years. 35 Backlog of orders or recovery of backlogs in the last 5 years. 37 Comparative table of financial indicators for the last 5 years 38 Comparative table of accidents for the last 5 years.
