An Empirical Study On Companies Listed On The Shanghai Stock Exchange Voluntary Disclosures In Annual Reporting

Now the society is full of different kinds of information, the information disclosed by the listed company is connecting the listed companies and the securities market. So the level of information disclosure directly effects on the decision of the investors and whether the securities market can effectively operate or not. However, do the listed companies have enough motivation to make the voluntary disclosure? Which factors have effect on the voluntary disclosure? The general idea of the thesis is to research these questions analytically and empirically. There are three parts in the thesis: the contents and the characteristics of the voluntary disclosure information, the motivation of the voluntary disclosure information, and the empirical study of the factors of the voluntary disclosure.Firstly, the thesis expatiates on the contents and the characteristics of the voluntary disclosure information, and makes the comparison between obligatory disclosure information and voluntary disclosure information.Secondly, the thesis analyses the motivation of the voluntary disclosure information, and the profit and cost of the voluntary disclosure information.Thirdly, multivariate regression is employed to research the factors of the voluntary disclosure lever. The sample of the research comprises 250 companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. And the thesis adopts the index of voluntary disclosure which includes strategic information, non-financial information and financial information to scale the level of voluntary disclosure. And also the thesis chooses tradable ownership, concentration of ownership,independent directors , the existence of an audit committee, issue type, industrial type, auditor type, size, profit, leverage, growth and dividend policy as independent variables, which effect on the voluntary disclosure. The results of the research are summarized below: in regression analysis about whole sample group, independent directors, the existence of an audit committee, issue type, industrial type, the size and the profit of the company are significantly influencing the level of voluntary disclosure. Moreover the multivariate regression is employed to research the factors of voluntary strategic information, non-financial information and financial information disclosure levels, which is the creative point of the thesis. The results of the research are different from the front results: independent directors is only positively related to the strategic information disclosure level, the existence of an audit committee and industrial type are only significantly influencing the level of strategic information and financial information disclosure, issue type is only significantly influencing the level of strategic information and non-financial information disclosure, but the size and the profit of the company are not related to the level of strategic information, non-financial information and financial information disclosure.Finally, based on the results of the studies, the thesis puts forward some advice for improving voluntary disclosure information level, such as improving corporation ownership structure, strengthening the external supervision mechanism, improving the qualities of investors, established the information disclosure system consisting of obligatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure information and improving the supporting mechanism of voluntary disclosure information.