1. Corporate Disclosure: Essentials and Relevance
1.1 Concept of Corporate Disclosure
1.2 Significance of Corporate Disclosure
1.3 Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting Information
1.3.1 Relevance
1.3.2 Reliability
1.3.3 Understandability
1.3.4 Materiality
1.3.5 Consistency
1.3.6 Comparability
1.3.7 Freedom from Bias
1.4 Medium of Disclosure: Annual Report
1.5 Concept of Multinational Corporation
1.5.1 Salient features of Multinational Corporations
1.5.2 Government Policy towards MNCs since Independence
1.5.3 MNCs vs. Indian Corporates
2. Impact of Liberalisation on Corporate Disclosure
2.1 Economic Liberalisation
2.2 Economic Reforms in India Since 1991
2.2.1 De-reservation of Industries of Public Sector
2.2.2 Abolition of Industrial Licensing
2.2.3 Liberalisation of Import Licensing Procedure
2.2.4 Export Liberalisation
2.2.5 Removal of Investment Controls on Large Business Houses
2.2.6 Simplification and Rationalisation of Tariff
2.2.7 Replacement of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) 1973 by Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 2000
2.2.8 Abolition of the Office of the Controller of Capital Issues (CCI) and Setting up of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
2.2.9 Foreign Investment Policy
2.3 Establishment of World Trade Organisation (WTO)
2.3.1 Tariffs
2.3.2 Quantitative Restrictions
2.3.3 TRIPS
2.3.4 TRIMS
2.3.5 GATS
2.3.6 Trade and Labour Standards
2.4 Impact on Corporate Disclosure
2.5 Indian Scenario
3. Global and Indian Reviews of Disclosure Practices
3.1 Studies Conducted Abroad
3.2 Studies Conducted In India
3.3 MNCs and Indian Corporates: Divergent Practices
3.4 Index of Disclosure
3.4.1 Construction of the Index of Disclosure
3.4.2 Unweighted Disclosure Score
3.4.3 Weighted Disclosure Score
4. Corporate Disclosure: Regulatory Framework
4.1 OECD: Draft Principles of Corporate Governance
4.1.1 Financial and Operating Results of the Company
4.1.2 Company Objectives
4.1.3 Major Shareholdings and Voting Rights
4.1.4 Members of the Board and Key Executives and Their Remuneration
4.1.5 Material Foreseeable Risk Factors
4.1.6 Material Issues Regarding Employees and other Stakeholders
4.1.7 Governance Structure and Policies
4.1.8 Audit
4.1.9 Dissemination of Information
4.2 Cadbury Committee
4.3 Greenbury Committee
4.4 Hampel Committee
4.5 Indian Scenario
4.5.1 The Indian Companies Act 1956
4.5.2 Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)
4.5.3 Listing Agreement (Stock Exchange)
4.5.4 CII Code: Desirable Corporate Governance
4.5.5 Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
4.5.6 Naresh Chandra Committee (DCA)
4.5.7 Credit Rating Agencies
5. Annual Reports of Companies: An Analysis
5.1 Company-wise Analysis
5.2 Item-wise Analysis
5.2.1 Items Having Effect on Liquidity
5.2.2 Items Having Effect on Earning Power/Profitability
5.2.3 Items Useful to Assess Net Worth
5.2.4 Items Useful to Measure Managerial Efficiency
5.2.5 Items Relating to Management and Labour Relations
5.2.6 Other Items and Statements Useful to Users
5.3 Users of Annual Reports: A Survey
5.3.1 Objective of Financial Statements
5.3.2 Relative Importance of Sources of Information
5.3.3 Importance of Different Parts of Company Annual Reports
5.3.4 Importance of Investment Decision Making
5.3.5 Ratings of Items by Users
5.3.6 Findings Based on Investor’s Survey
6. Influence of Company Characteristics on Corporate Disclosure
6.1 Size
6.2 Profitability
6.3 Type of Industry
6.4 Regression Analysis
6.5 Company Characteristics
6.6 Empirical Findings: Bivariate Analysis
6.7 Profitability-Return on Investment (ROI)
6.8 Empirical Findings: Multivariate Analysis
7. Achieving Effective Corporate Disclosure
Appendix: India’s Industrial Policy Since Independence
Bibliography
Index
