An assessment of interaction between ownership structure and voluntary financial disclosure of Lithuanian corporations

Abstract

Availability of information is alleged to be a key requirement for the efficient functioning of a market. In scientific literature the concept of financial information is identified by numerous terms, such as financial data, financial reports, accounting information, and economic information. In this paper entity's financial information is defined as data about assets, liabilities, equity, income, expenses, profit or loss, cash flows and share capital's market information, which were transformed in an entity, were given content and form, required in the laws or chosen by the managers to meet goals of the entity, and were prepared to be disclosed to the external users of the financial information. Based on the regulation of information transformation and disclosure, financial information of an entity may be classified into mandatory (which is prepared and disclosed in accordance with the laws and entity's agreements with the external parties) and voluntary (which is prepared in accordance with the entity's public relation policy and which disclosure is not obligatory) financial information. The object of this paper is entity's voluntary financial information disclosure. Analysis of the scientific literature revealed that papers in the field of voluntary information disclosure address many issues, such as what kind of information and how much of it should companies disclose, what factors influence voluntary information disclosure, what influence such disclosure has on financial markets and corporations, etc. However, in Lithuania these topics have not been much analysed. The objective of this paper is to assess the level of voluntary financial information disclosure and its interactions with ownership structure of Lithuanian corporations. Empirical findings of the previous research reveal that voluntary corporate disclosure is influenced by many factors, ownership structure being among the most important of them.[...]