DETERMINANTS OF VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE ON ANNUAL REPORT OF COMPANIES (Study of Manufacturing Companies in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore)

Oleh :
Kamilia Alfi Naily - F0306046 - Fak. Ekonomi dan Bisnis

ABSTRACT The objectives of this research are (1) to examine the effects of ownership structures toward the extent of voluntary disclosures, in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and (2) to examine the effect of company characteristics toward the extent of voluntary disclosures in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. This research employed 135 samples of annual reports of manufacturing companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), Malaysia Stock Exchange (MYX) and Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), at the end of 2007. The year of 2007 was selected because in that year, ASIAN countries were release from monetary crisis that hit ASIAN countries in 1997. Hence, companies were expected in stable condition and information disclosed in annual report was relatively relevant. Samples in this research ware selected using purposive sampling method. Voluntary disclosures were measured by Botosan index (1997). Botosan index is an unweighted index, thus research subjectivity is expected to be minimal. This index was chosen partly because its ability to implement across countries (e.g. Kumar et al,2008 in Asia Pacific countries and Wijantini,2006 in Indonesia). Multiple regression analysis was used to test 7 hypotheses. The descriptive statistic result suggests that voluntary disclosure in three countries is relatively low. Indonesia achieves the highest rank in the extent of voluntary disclosure, followed by Singapore and Malaysia. Regression result suggests that size is significant explanatory variable in each country. This research also proved that profitability effect voluntary disclosures in Malaysia while foreign ownership effect voluntary disclosures in Singapore. Keywords: Voluntary disclosures, Botosan index, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore