Risk disclosure practice in Saudi non-financial listed companies

Abstract

This study makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on corporate risk disclosure (RD) in emerging economies with a focus on the Saudi Arabian economy in the context of the Middle East. The vast majority of RD literature has placed emphasis on case studies and systems adopted in developed nations. This study undertakes a detailed analysis of RD practices in Saudi Arabian non-financial listed firms by adopting a quantitative approach for the collection and analysis of the datasets using a sample of non-financial firms listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawal) over the period of 2010 to 2014. The study adopts a self-constructed unweighted risk disclosure index utilised in the measurement of risk disclosure. The index thus comprises of 11 main categories and a total of 47 sub-items. The main findings show that the average level of (RD) among all the samples is 17%, the maximum is 55%, and 10 firms did not make any RD at all, and of the majority that do, 63% of the information pertains to financial risk disclosure and related risks and the other 37% to non-financial risk disclosure. The trend for RD over the five-year period of study shows that most companies experienced an increase in their risk reporting activity.