Consensus between preparers and users of annual report

Abstract

The basic purpose of corporate disclosure is to communicate information about the financial performance of the company to the persons who are concerned with the company. As an information system, the accounting process serves persons both inside and outside the organisation. The information needs of various users differ from one another. Every effort has to be made through the financial statement to communicate as much information as possible to the interested parties. Every company makes the best possible efforts to "disseminate" information such that the actual supply ofinformation matches with the "expectations" of the users of annual reports. The specific objectives of the study are; to analyse the consensus between the companies and users of the annual report; to examine the consensus among the various user groups of annual report and to analyse the consensus among the various selected categories of shareholders, regarding the various items of corporate disclosure. The present study covers a sample of 125 public Ltd companies as preparers and 200 respondents as users of information.