Board Composition, Audit Committees, Ownership Structure and Voluntary Disclosure: Evidence from Bahrain

Abstract

The primary objective of  this study is to examine the association between board composition, the existence of audit committees, ownership structure and the level of  voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of  listed companies in Bahrain Stock Exchange.   Information was generated  using content analysis of annual reports. A disclosure check list consisting of thirty items were identified from previous research and a self-constructed voluntary disclosure index was developed.  Descriptive statistics, correlations  and regression analysis were used to test the research hypotheses.  Contrary to expectations and consistent with some previous empirical studies, the results indicate that there is no relationship between the extent of  voluntarily disclosure and both, board composition and audit committees, but there is a negative and weak relationship with ownership concentration. The paper  concludes that further explanation of  why companies voluntarily disclose information is still needed.

Keywords: Voluntary disclosure index; Board composition; Audi Committee; Ownership structure; Bahrain.