Empirical Research On The Voluntary Disclosure Of The Shanghai-listed Company And The Company Characteristics Relationship

This thesis empirically examines the influence of 5 firm-specific characteristics on the general level of voluntary disclosure in the 2002 annual reports of companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The empirical evidence suggests that firm size, ownership structure, and firm profitability are statistically related to the level of information voluntarily disclosed by publicly traded companies in SSE. There are three parts in this thesis: the explanation of voluntary disclosure and literature review, empirical study, discussion and proposal.In the first part, the difference between voluntary disclosure and mandatory disclosure has been presented. And then from two points of view, the motivation of the voluntary disclosure has been summarized. Finally, some empirical study of other countries has been listed.In the second part, we randomly select 110 listed companies in SSE according to its industrial ratio and examine the influence of 5 firm-specific characteristics on the general level of voluntary disclosure. The 5 variables tested are firm size, ownership structure, firm profitability, leverage and influence of audit firm. The first three variables are influential factors. In contrast, leverage and influence of audit firm do not appear to be important factors in explaining voluntary disclosure by firms.In the third part, thorough discussion has been made according to the empirical results. At the same time, the proposals for improving voluntary disclosure of listed companies have been put forward. And finally, we give advice to the future research.