Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which “corporate governance” and “conservatism” variables can contribute to the predictive ability of corporate financial disclosures. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple discriminant analysis is used to differentiate...

Purpose – The obfuscation hypothesis suggests that under-performing firms will tend to obscure the meaning of their corporate narratives by deliberately adopting a textual complexity, most readily apparent through poor readability and the use of unnecessarily difficult language. This paper...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which “corporate governance” and “conservatism” variables can contribute to the predictive ability of corporate financial disclosures. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple discriminant analysis is used to differentiate...

Explores whether the firm’s discretionary narrative disclosures measure its financial risk of bankruptcy. Specifically examines the existence of an association between the content of the chairman’s statement and firm failure. Show that these statements are closely associated with financial...