Voluntary Disclosure of Integrated Reporting Elements: The Malaysian Public Listed Companies Evidence

Abstract

The Integrated Reporting (IR) Framework aims to provide guidelines to the corporate reporting societyconcerning the overall content of an integrated report. The objective of this study is to explore the voluntary disclosure of the eight content elements of the IR Framework by companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia. Annual reports of 603 companies listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia for 2015 were examined. Findings show that majority of the respondents, 497 (82.42%), disclose between 71% to 80% information related to the companies’organizational overview and external environment, which is the first IR content element. Meanwhile the majority of the companies, 572 (94.86%), disclose between 81% to 90% information related to second IR content element that is governance. Regarding the third IR content element, business model, the majority of the companies, 411 (68.16%), disclose only between 41% to 50% of this information and 568 (94.2%) companies disclose between 51% to 60% of the information related to the companies’ risks and opportunities which is the forth IR content element. Further, for IR content element five, strategy and resource allocation, the majority of the companies, 466 (77.28%), disclose between 51% to 60% of the said information. For the next IR content element which is performance, the majority of the companies, 494 (81.92%), disclose only between 31% to 40% information concerning the companies’ performance. Subsequently, the majority of the companies, 495 (82.09%), disclose between 41% to 50% of the information on the seventh IR content element that is outlook. Finally, on the information regarding basis of presentation, the level of disclosure for the majority of the companies, 495 (82.09%), is between 41% to 50%.The findings reveal that disclosure of most of the IRcontent elements isstill below the high level in Malaysia. This implies the need to intensely encourage companies to disclose more information in supporting the initiative towards furnishing a more comprehensive corporate report.