Corporate Voluntary Disclosure a Review of Issues

Abstract

The quality of financial reporting by corporations has always been an area of interest for academicians. A good financial reporting system by management helps the users of financial reports to get a better p erspective of the business and to enable sound economic decisions. To ensure the same, the regulators of the respective countries prescribe several guidelines which form part of mandatory disclosures. However. there are companies that choose to voluntarily report more information through various means. This paper reviews theoretical and empirical papers in the area of financial disclosures and has collated more than huned research papers spanning 52 years, from 1962 to 2014, from all continents of the world which analyse the theories and framework of voluntary disclosures to develop keen insights into this evolving area. The paper highlights the important unexplored questions and concludes with a direction for future research.