Open AccessReporting of financial ratios by (Polish) public companies
Author(s) -
Marek Masztalerz
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
zeszyty teoretyczne rachunkowości
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2391-677X
pISSN - 1641-4381
DOI - 10.5604/01.3001.0013.3077
Subject(s) - accounting , content analysis , business , descriptive statistics , population , index (typography) , shareholder , scope (computer science) , annual report , earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization , audit , financial ratio , finance , sociology , statistics , corporate governance , computer science , social science , demography , mathematics , earnings , world wide web , programming language
The article is the result of an original empirical study and complements the cognitive gap in existingstudies on the reporting of financial indicators – no comparisons have been made so far between differenttypes of messages. The purpose of the article is to identify and compare the scope of voluntary disclosuresof financial ratios in the announcements of public companies included in the WIG20 index. Thestudy includes the analysis the content of messages posted by companies on websites, such as financialstatements, annual report, auditor's report, letter of the president to shareholders, presentation of resultsfor investors, spreadsheet with financial data and data published directly on the website. In total, 106messages were examined. Content analysis, descriptive and comparative analysis, and the inductionmethod were used. As a result of the conducted research, it was found that selected financial indicators(out of a total of 22 reported indicators in the surveyed population) are presented in various messages,while companies make different choices regarding the type of indicators, place of publication and calculationformulas used. The EBITDA-based ratios were the most popular, which is a surprising finding.