Human Capital Disclosures in the Corporate Annual Reports : A Study on Financial Institutions of Bangladesh

The main objective of this article is to examine the nature and extent of human capital (HC) disclosures in the corporate annual reports of the financial institutions of Bangladesh. For this purpose, the research has examined the annual report of 20 companies (financial institutions) listed on Dhaka Stock Exchange, Bangladesh. This study uses the comprehensive content analysis framework of items (HC disclosures), form, location and number of sentences to measure the nature and extent of HC disclosures. The study finds that 90% of selected companies voluntarily disclose HC in their annual reports, where ‘training and development' has been found to be highest reported item. Notably this study has revealed that one company reports separate statement on HC accounting & monetarily measures the value of HC (all employees). Findings of our study also indicate that three companies have reported separate section for disclosing HC. Furthermore, this study finds that all financial institutions (disclosing companies) disclose HC qualitatively where 55.6% companies disclose quantitatively. On average 33 sentences are used to report HC. The companies of the developing countries like Bangladesh can use the HC disclosure index developed in this study as a model to improve their HC disclosure practices