Abstract

The focal point of this study is on voluntary disclosure in interim financial reports of the ASE listed companies in Jordan. The initiatives of voluntary disclosure have been under global scrutiny since the last two decades, owing to various stakeholders’ persistent needs to be more informed about their corporations. As the mandatory corporate disclosure itself is insufficient, the study attempts to assess the directions of causality between the degree of voluntary disclosure and corporate performance in the half-yearly reports released by companies listed in the Jordan’s ASE for the period of 5 years (2009-2013). The Granger tests were employed to ascertain the causality between voluntary disclosures and corporate performance in the half-yearly reports. From the test outcomes, most companies (50) show no directional causality, 21 companies demonstrate unidirectional causality while one company has bidirectional causality. The quality of voluntary disclosure appears to have high correlation with the performance of companies their half-yearly reports. Thus, high levels of transparency and quality of disclosure lead to good governance and enhance company’s performance, while low voluntary disclosure makes it more difficult to forecast the company’s performance.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.