Research On The Impact Facters Of Timeliness Of The Annual Report Disclosure Of China’s Listed Companies

Timeliness is an important feature of the quality of accounting information. Whether the accounting information is published and reaching the hands of the users or not is directly related to investors able to make effective decisions. Timely disclosure of accounting information can reduce information asymmetry in the stock market, reduce transaction costs, and effectively improve corporate governance. So, the study of the issue of the timeliness of the annual report disclosure, both in theory and in practice has far-reaching significance.The article chooses annual reports of listed companies from2009to2011as the study sample, using annual report disclosure rlag as the substitution variable for the timeliness. The study used SPSS19.0software to make descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, univariate analysis and multivariate linear regression analysis. It studies the impact on annual report disclosure timeliness of Ownership structure, company size, results of operations, the type of audit opinion and independent director proportion. The study found that, the time of the annual report disclosure showing an upward trend after the first drop with the improvement of ownership concentration; the relationship between equity balance degree and annual report disclosure delay is positive correlated, when the largest shareholder of listed companies are state-owned shareholders, the annual report will disclose in advance, the timeliness is better; the relationship between company size, operating results, the proportion of independent directors and annual disclosure delay is negatively correlated; the relationship between type of audit opinion and the annual report disclosure delay is negative correlated, when there is standard unqualified opinion in the company’s annual audit report, the timeliness is better. Finally, we got the conclusion:(1) China’s listed companies disclosed in the Annual Report is regular, most listed companies tend to disclose the annual report at the end of March and April, they concentrated in the late April of each year, especially in the last five days, the corporates’Annual Reports showing a trend like "tight loose" and "catch the last train,", the timeliness is poor, and the overall situation is not optimistic;(2) There are so many factors that affects China’s listed companies annual report disclosure timeliness, the difference with foreign is the study of the types of shareholders;(3) the type of audit opinion and proportion of independent directors is the biggest factors which affect the annual report disclosure timeliness. Combined with the actual situation of China’s securities market, The article makes the following recommendations:increasing awareness of information disclosure of listed companies; perfect the Annual Report appointment disclosure system; strengthen the supervision of the Corporate Annual Reports; improve the practicing level and efficiency of auditors.