This study examines the impact of board composition on the level of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of listed Jordanian firms. Content analysis is used to collect the required data form the 2012-annual reports of 103 firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. Overall, the empirical evidence provided by the study is in line with the agency theory predictions. Furthermore, they have practical implications for firms and regulators in Jordan on the importance of the board of directors and voluntary disclosure as control mechanisms for mitigating the effect of the information asymmetries and agency problems. The study shows a moderate level of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of Jordanian firms. However, insurance firms tend to disclose more voluntary information than industrial and services firms. Also, the results suggest that Jordanian firms with a high-level of board ownership concentration tend to keep the level of voluntary disclosure low. On the other hand, the presence of foreign directors on the board seems to influence, positively, the level of voluntary disclosure in Jordanian firms. Likewise, the proportion of the old directors on the boards in Jordanian firms is very high and is significantly associated with a higher level of voluntary disclosure.

This study aims at investigating graphical reporting practices in the annual reports of Jordanian banks. Data are collected from the annual reports of 15 banks listed on Amman Stock Exchange for the period 2008-2013. The study revealed that graphs are being moderately used by Jordanian banks to present information in their annual reports. The presence of non-executive directors on the boards of Jordanian banks tend to limit graph usage in their annual reports. In addition, the study provides clear evidence for the presence of improperly designed graphs in the annual reports of Jordanian Banks. Thus, regulators in Jordan such as the Security Exchange Commission may need to develop a set of guiding principle for properly designed graphs. Furthermore, effort has to be devoted to encourage firms to comply with these principles.

PurposeThis paper aims to use empirical data to classify and contextualize the various practices of quality costing.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses 23 “best practices” of quality costing extracted from the literature to survey quality managers of 88 publicly listed Jordanian manufacturing firms. Exploratory factor analysis is then used to create an empirical taxonomic framework.FindingsFactor analysis of the data identifies a six‐factor structure of the practices of quality costing (PQC). Inspection of the component items shows the factors to be conceptually meaningful with none of them containing conflicting items. All factors are reliable and valid and have statistically sound structures.Research limitations/implicationsThe classification provided can help managers to better visualize, understand and implement the concept of quality costing. It provides a framework within which practices can be structured and evaluated; managers can identify areas in their firms that are missing and may warrant improvement. The findings should be treated cautiously: the operational definition of PQC derives from an inconsistent literature. Furthermore, the findings are based on self reported data, collected through a questionnaire in Jordan and there is potential source bias or general method variance.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the body of knowledge through operationalizing the overall concept of quality costing by means of the PQC scale. The six factors identified represent latent constructs within PQC and the component items operationalize such constructs. Furthermore, the procedure provides an illustration of pragmatic application of exploratory factor analysis to empirical managerial data, which can be used in other contexts.

This study aims to investigate free cash flow hypothesis proposed by Jensen (1986). Data pertaining to 102 non-financial firms listed on ASE during the period of 1998-2009 are analyzed using pooled and panel data methods. Contrary to Jensen (1986) proposition, we found that debt and dividend are not substitute techniques for mitigating agency costs of free cash flow in the Jordanian capital market, rather, they are complementary to each other. However, debt is used more than dividend for stability consideration of dividend policy where the use of debt and dividend is largely affected by dividend smoothing and leverage target adjustment considerations. Moreover, we found that low growth firms use debt more than dividends.