The effect of ownership structure, board characteristics, and CEO characteristics on integrated reports disclosure

Purpose – This study's purpose is to examine the effect of ownership structure, characteristics of the board, and CEO characteristics on integrated reports (IR) disclosure.

Design/methodology/approach – The study relied on the content analysis approach in examining the annual reports of a sample of 67 non-financial companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020, with a total of 335 observations.

Findings – The study findings indicate that there is a significant positive effect of institutional ownership, board size, board independence, board gender diversity, CEO duality, and CEO expertise on IR disclosure. Moreover, the results also concluded that there is a significant negative effect of family ownership, board meetings, and the tenure of the CEO on IR disclosure.

Implications – This paper contributes to activating the supervisory role of the Saudi Capital Market Authority to verify companies’ commitment to disclosing ownership structure information and the extent of compliance with governance mechanisms, which leads to improving the level and quality of IR disclosure and reducing information asymmetry.

Originality/value – The study helps corroborate the literature and the theoretical explanation of the relationship between corporate governance and IR disclosure in the Saudi context.