Does a Corporate Governance Aspect Matter for Business Responsibility Reporting Readability?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33516/rb.v44i1.69-81pKeywords:
BR Report (BRR), Readability, Corporate Governance Attribute, Content Analysis, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).Abstract
Study empirically investigates the impact of corporate governance attributes on companies’ reading ease choice to disclose Business Responsibility (BR) Report information since corporate governance ensures transparent, fair, credible and responsible corporate behaviors to its stakeholders. The corporate governance attributes used in the study are board size, board committee, board independence, female on board. BR readability measure and corporate governance variables are measured and extracted from a checklist of items based on SEBI’s BRR suggested framework 2012 and for BR report readability, Flesch K reading ease has been calculated from selected companies annual BR reports and websites respectively.
Empirical evidence on the link between corporate governance and BR report readability of top listed companies is scarce or unavailable. Given the positive impact corporate governance attributes have on the extent of BR disclosure readability (reading ease); their role can be further strengthened in terms of overseeing quality of information disclosed. Stakeholders and regulators will need to develop greater awareness of firm BR disclosure biases associated with ownership and more carefully scrutinize firm’s foggy and smoggy BR information’s that firms are reporting on. Readability analysis of BR reports disclosure has been a strong research theme in the fields of corporate governance and business communication.
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