Annual report mandatory disclosures in Malaysian Federal Statutory Bodies

This study attempts to assess the level of mandatory disclosures in the annual report of Malaysian Federal Statutory Bodies (FSB) and to empirically investigate the hypothesized impact of several organization characteristics on the extend of annual report mandatory disclosure. A Mandatory Disclosure Index (MDI) was developed consisting 40 mandatory items which were extracted from Malaysian Treasury Circular Number 4, 2007 [1] to assess the level of disclosure in the 2009 annual reports of 117 FSB. Irrespective of the nature of businesses, all organizations are expected to make full disclosure of the selected items. The association between the level of disclosure and the chosen firm characteristics were examined using multiple regression analysis. The study reveals that FSB disclosed moderate at 61.6 per cent. The findings also indicate that self-generated income and surplus/deficit made a unique and statistically significant contribution to the prediction of the mandatory disclosure level scores. In addition, business and socioeconomic categories play significant roles to the mandatory disclosure level. The remaining variables such as a government grant, size, year, public utility, education and research, were found to be insignificant in explaining the variation of mandatory disclosures. The outcome of this study provides valuable information to the ministers, parliament, taxpayers and citizen in evaluating the extent of mandatory disclosure by the FSB.