The Effects of Transparency of Financial Information and Board Composition on Forecast Accuracy of Corporate Earnings

The aim of the present research is to determine the effects of financial information transparency and composition of board of directors on forecast accuracy of corporate earnings in companies. A corporation s key for success is hidden in its optimal direction. So it can be claimed that the secret of the eternal reputation of popular corporations lies in their efficient board of directors. One of the significant components of important economic decisions of investors and of the optimal features of competitive markets is better and further information disclosure, especially the one which is specific to a certain corporation. Essential information disclosure facilitates quick transactions which are the principle determinant of a corporation s capacity. Earning forecast by managers and its characteristics is a sign of presenting managers private information or confirming their claims. This sign helps investors to realize the relationship between managers forecast and future earnings better and predict stock price more accurately. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is probing into the effect of transparency of financial information and board composition on forecast accuracy of corporate earnings in companies in Tehran Stock Exchange by examining a sample of 498 firm-year data over the period between 2006 and 2011. In order to test each of the research hypotheses, multivariate regressions were conducted using SPSS18. Testing the hypotheses showed that financial information transparency is not effective on forecast accuracy of corporate earnings. However, the composition of board of directors had a meaningful negative impact on forecast accuracy of corporate earnings. Besides, the research findings showed that among control variables tested in the research model, financial leverage had a negative significant relationship and company size did not have a significant and positive relationship with forecast accuracy of corporate earnings.