The Impact Of Ownership Structure On The Voluntary Disclosure

The voluntary accounting information disclosure is related closely to corporate governance, and the ownership structure, as an important part of the corporate governance, should have a profound impact on the voluntary accounting information disclosure. Meanwhile, as an institutional arrangement in transition economy, the ownership structures of listed companies in China have a special subject, and there are many problems in the segmentation of tradable and non-tradable stock, which makes our ownership structure have its particularity, comparing with foreign companies.According to the voluntary disclosure studies of Chinese scholars, we found: first, in the background of the reform of non-tradable shares, it is a little lack of the research about whether the changes of ownership structure, as an important component of corporate governance, have a significant impact on the voluntary accounting information disclosure; second, the researches of ownership structure on voluntary disclosure were mainly focused on the impact of stock equity concentration degree, there is still some controversy, especially about the empirical conclusions. Therefore, it is of important practical significance that to study the influence of the reform of non-tradable shares to the voluntary accounting information disclosure.Research purposeIn this paper, author combines the reform of non-tradable shares, chooses the listed companies which finished the non-tradable shares reform during the period of January 1,2006 to December 31,2006 as samples. Using annual reports of these listed companies in 2004,2005,2006 and 2007, the author analyzes the changes of voluntary accounting information disclosure and the influence of ownership structure in the background of non-tradable shares reform.1. Analysis for the changes and the characteristics of the voluntary information of listed companies which experienced the non-tradable shares reform. Quantify the voluntary disclosure information of listed companies, by establishing the index of voluntary accounting information disclosure of listed companies. For those listed companies which finished non-tradable shares reform, what characteristics of the preference of voluntary disclosure information are? What kind of information do the listed companies prefer to disclosure voluntarily? Whether the non-tradable shares reform increased the quality of voluntary disclosure?2. Testify the impact of Chinese special ownership structure on voluntary accounting information disclosure.This paper presents hypotheses, using the index of voluntary accounting information as dependent variable, and treats ownership structure as control variable; such as equity concentration degree, balance of ownership. And the asset sizes, profitability, locations of listed companies are control variables, too. Establish the multi-regression model to judge the reflection of reality, and then propose how to improve the quality of voluntary information disclosure, by the improvement of ownership structure.Main structureThis paper has 6 chapters; the main structure is as follows:Chapter 1:introduction. This chapter illustrated the research background and target, content and method, research frame and innovations etc.Chapter 2:literature. This chapter analyses the six motivations of voluntary disclosure and the empirical research about voluntary disclosure in China and abroad.Chapter 3:the theoretical analysis of voluntary disclosure. This chapter illustrated the definition of voluntary disclosure of information.Chapter 4:current situation analysis of ownership structure. This chapter illustrated China's distinctive ownership structure, as well as the impact of non-tradable shares reform on listed companies' ownership structure. Simultaneously, this chapter issues the impact of ownership structure from theoretical explanation.Chapter 5:voluntary accounting information disclosure of listed company positive analysis. The paper established the index of voluntary accounting information disclosure of listed companies in China. Then it evaluated the quality of voluntary information of listed companies'annual reports during the period of 2004 to 2007. The findings showed:the formation and perfection of ownership structure would be better for listed companies, stakeholders and other related parties.Chapter 6:policy recommendations and the limitations of the study.The main contributions1. This paper testified the positive impact of the reform of non-tradable shares to voluntary accounting information disclosure in China, by empirical research.2. Using balance of ownership influences on voluntary disclosure.