Corporate Governance, the Timeliness of Financial Reporting and the Russian Banking System : An Empirical Study

Transparency is one of those terms that have many facets. It is used in different ways. It can refer to the openness of governmental functions. It can refer to a country's economy. Or it can refer to various aspects of corporate governance and financial reporting. The OECD (1998) lists transparency as one element of good corporate governance. Kulzick (2004) and others (Blanchet, 2002; Prickett, 2002) view transparency from a user perspective. According to their view, transparency includes the following eight concepts: accuracy, consistency, appropriateness, completeness, clarity, timeliness, convenience, and governance and enforcement. This paper focuses on just one aspect of transparency - timeliness.The International Accounting Standards Board considers timeliness to be an essential aspect of financial reporting. In APB Statement No. 4, the Accounting Principles Board (1970) in the USA listed timeliness as one of the qualitative objectives of financial reporting disclosure. APB Statement No. 4 was later superseded but the Financial Accounting Standards Board continued to recognize the importance of timeliness in its Concepts Statement No. 2 (1980). The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also recognizes the importance of timeliness and requires that listed companies file their annual 10-K reports by a certain deadline.The issue of timeliness has several facets. There is an inverse relationship between the quality of financial information and the timeliness with which it is reported (Kenley amp; Staubus, 1974). Accounting information becomes less relevant with the passage of time (Atiase, Bamber amp; Tse, 1989; Hendriksen amp; van Breeda, 1992; Lawrence amp; Glover, 1998)