Exploring the aggregate, mandatory and voluntary financial disclosure behaviour under a new regulatory environment : the case of Jordan

The scope of the study is to investigate the disclosure behaviour in Jordan after important changes in the economic and accounting regulations. The Securities Law No. 23 in 1997 was a significant turning point for the Jordanian Capital Market (JCM). The Law restructured JCM and imposed new regulations to achieve the transparency in the market in line with international standards. Thus, this study aims to expand our understanding about the financial disclosure for Jordanian companies, since the introduction of this Law. In particular, the major objectives of the study are:1) To evaluate the extent of aggregate, mandatory and voluntary disclosure practices for Jordanian companies listed in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE).2- To examine the relationship between the aggregate disclosure (mandatory and voluntary) and a number of company characteristics (financial and non-financial) for Jordanian companies listed in ASE.3- To investigate whether or not Jordanian corporations in ASE comply with mandatory disclosure requirements when they prepare their annual reports.4- To develop a disclosure framework by undertaking interviews with related parties (i.e. regulators, auditors and financial analysts) in order to enhance our understanding about the disclosure issue in Jordan and to understand and explain the findings of the quantitative approach which was applied to meet the first three objectives of the study.A sequential explanatory triangulation design was adopted, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Quantitative data collection and analysis was used to achieve the first three objectives of the study. For the purpose of the first and second objectives, an aggregate comprehensive disclosure index of 331 items was constructed (278 mandatory items and 53 voluntary items). In addition, 17 hypotheses were formulated in order to examine the relationship between the extent of aggregate disclosure (dependent variable) and the company's characteristics (independent variables): firm size, ...