العلاقة بين خصائص لجنة المراجعة و مستوى الإفصاح عن رأس المال الفكري : دراسة تطبيقية في بيئة الأعمال السعودية

الملخص EN

This research aims mainly to investigate the the extent of intellectual capital disclosure by Saudi listed companies and examine the impact of audit committees’ characteristics on the extent of intellectual capital disclosure by listed companies in KSA.

Further, it aims to study advantages and retardants of the disclosure of intellectual capital.

The researchers relied on the Content Analysis approach to examine annual reports of a sample of 100 companies listed on the Saudi stock exchange during 2017 to designe a model for measuring the impact of audit committees’ characteristics on the extent of accounting disclosure of intellectual capital.

The researchers also conducted a field study by distributing a questionnaire to a sample of: (35) faculty members, (38) chairs and members of audit committees, (34) external auditors and (27) investors.

The study employed the Statistical Package of Social Sciences – SPSS for the needed data analysis.

The current study found a relatively low level of accounting disclosure of intellectual capital by Saudi listed companies during 2017.

Moreover, it was found that the most important characteristics of audit committee affecting this disclosure is (1) independence of the audit committee’s members; (2) the number of committee’s meetings.

However, no evidence was found concerning the number of audit committee’s members.

Regarding the advantages, motives and retardants of the disclosure of intellectual capital, there were statistically significant differences among respondents included in this survey.

Based on this, the study recommends the importance of motivating Saudi companies to increase the level of disclosure of intellectual capital, and obligating companies to issue an accounting report on the company's disclosure of intellectual capital, with the need to adopt it from an external auditor as in the annual financial reports