Association between firm characteristics and corporate voluntary disclosure: evidence from Turkish listed companies

Purpose: This paper empirically investigates the factors that impact voluntary information disclosure level of Turkish manufacturing companies listed in the Borsa Istanbul (BIST). Design/methodology/approach: The data collection methodology of the study is content analysis of annual reports of the corporations listed on the BIST for the year 2010. In order to analyze the results, we employed Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regressions to examine the association between the explanatory variables and voluntary disclosure level. Findings: The findings provide evidence of a positive association between voluntary information disclosure level and the variables such as firm size, auditing firm size, proportion of independent directors on the board, institutional/corporate ownership, and corporate governance. However, leverage and ownership diffusion were found to have negative significant association with the extent of voluntary disclosure. The remaining variables, namely, profitability, listing age, and board size were found to be insignificant. Research limitations/implications: The study has got some implications for emerging markets particularly. Voluntary disclosure contributes to alleviate the agency