Stakeholder disclosure in the consumer and finance industries

Abstract or Summary

Disclosures of information are important for disseminating information and the functioning of profit and non-profit organisations. The organisation is required to disclose information to stakeholders through different ways such as interim quarterly reports, and annual reports, with much additional information provided voluntarily. The annual report is found to be the most vital source of information about an organisations activities, financial and non-financial. By using annual reports, stakeholders are getting updated with the company’s quarterly and annually performances. To measure the level of information disclosed in annual reports, disclosure indices measure and assess the level of information. By using a disclosure index, researchers can determine which information companies find the most important and which are the least important. Past research indicates that disclosures vary across industries due to stakeholder influences in the respective industries. This study investigates the level of disclosure in annual reports of the consumer service Industry and the financial Industry. For this research, eight companies were sampled and analysed using 20 selected disclosure items relative to four stakeholder groups. Disclosure indices were used to measure and compare the level of disclosures for both industries. The results of this study showed that consumer services industry disclose more information to stakeholders than the financial industry. The stakeholder disclosed to most by both industries was the shareholder while community was the least disclosed to. The lack of disclosure to some stakeholders indicates a stakeholder management phenomenon. Disclosure could be improved by all industries and more disclosure to particular stakeholders.