Measuring Compliance With IFRS Mandatory Disclosure Requirements

Abstract

This chapter examines Greek firms' compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements for the years 2006 and 2008. Using a checklist based on the IFRS disclosure requirements, a compliance score was calculated for each sample firm. Two methods of measuring compliance are used: the dichotomous method and the partial compliance method. By adopting both approaches proposed in literature for measuring compliance, the authors enhance the robustness of the findings of this study, while they provide empirical evidence concerning the extent to which the two approaches provide significantly different results. Further, they investigated firms' characteristics that are hypothesized to be related with disclosure compliance. It appears that closely held firms exhibit higher compliance rate. In addition, there is a positive association between the engagement of a Big-4 international auditing firm and disclosure compliance. Firms' profitability, leverage, and size do not explain disclosure compliance. The authors found that the two methods of measuring compliance do not produce significantly different results.