Voluntary non-financial disclosure practices by Belgian listed firms and their relevance from an analysts' point of view

Abstract

In a former study of Orens and Lybaert (2004), a cross-sectional approach was taken concerning the analysts' use of voluntary non-financial information. This paper elaborates on that study, in this sense that the subject is approached using time series data. More specifically, this paper discusses three research questions: (1) Is an evolution observable regarding the disclosure of voluntary non-financial information in annual reports over a period of time? (2) Is an evolution observable regarding the use of voluntary non-financial information by financial analysts? (3) Are corporate managers and financial analysts still attaching a different importance to non-financial information? Our research findings concerning the first research question show an improvement in the reporting practices by firms. In particular, an enhancement in the reporting of forward-looking information is observed. However, when discussing the second research question, it seems that the analysts' use of voluntary non-financial information in their analyst reports has not changed dramatically. Regarding the third research question, it is observed that the information gap between financial analysts and corporate managers still remains. Financial analysts use more forward-looking information and information about the stakeholders, i.e. the competitors, of the company. Corporate managers are reporting more information about the intangible assets and about the management and shareholders.