Effect of sustainability reporting on enhancement the quality of financial report : applied study at the Arab Jordan bank

Abstract EN

The aim of the research is to analyze sustainability reports and employ the GRI standards in improving the quality of financial reporting for the research sample, by knowing the quantity and quality of the bank's reporting on its economic, environmental and social performance and the extent of its commitment to governance standards that improve the quality of financial reporting, reduce accruals discretionary, information asymmetry, and accounting conservatism.

The quality of reporting on sustainability reports was measured by analyzing the content of the indicators disclosed in the sustainability reports.

Moreover, to assess the extent to which companies' sustainability reports meet the requirements of the GRI guidelines and score each topic in the guide.

For this purpose, we will then use a simplified score system from 0 to 1.

As for the amount of sustainability reporting, it was measured based on the number of sustainability paragraphs disclosed in the bank's annual report.

The quality of financial reporting was measured by discretionary accruals, accounting reservation and information asymmetry The 1991 Jones scale was used and amended in 1995 by Dechow et al, and it was recently developed in 2005 by Kothari et al.

This scale is based on the breakdown of total accruals into discretionary accruals and non discretionary.

.

As for the accounting conservatism, the measure of the ratio of book value to the market value was used to examine the value of the bank's shares by comparing the book value to the market value.

The accounting conservatism works to reduce the book value, against its market value.

As for the asymmetry of the information, the market theory was used and it includes two measures: the price and the trading volume of the desired prices.

This theory is considered one of the most used scale to measure the phenomenon of asymmetry of information, because it reflects the problem of reverse selection resulting from the difference in information.

The results of the research showed that the quality and quantity of sustainability reports for the research sample (109) and (94% ), respectively, where the quality and quantity were high, and the optional dues (-135534) were low.

And the accounting reservation (1) This means that there is no accounting reservation at the bank, the research sample.

Information asymmetry (0) This means information asymmetry does not exist.

This means the quality of the financial report is high.