Effect of Corporate Voluntary disclosure on Firm value of listed Companies at the Nairobi Securities Exchange

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of corporate voluntary disclosure on firm value of listed companies at the Nairobi Security Exchange (NSE) in Kenya. A census survey was carried and out of the 66 firms that were targeted, 56 were analyzed. The study relied on disclosure index procedures to assess the level of corporate voluntary disclosure in the annual reports (2010-2019) of 56 listed companies. The study also used panel data models to establish the association between the corporate voluntary disclosure and firm value. As of the year 2010, the adoption of CVD was very low at mean score of 34.3 (28.58% disclosure score). Nonetheless, there was a gradual improvement in CVD disclosure particularly from the year 2015. In the year 2019 the CVD mean score was 48.13 (40.1%) an improvement from 34.3 (28.58%) in 2010. The overall CVD mean score for listed company was 40.25 (33.54%) This indicates that adoption of CVD is low in Kenya. The finding shows that CVD affect firm value (using ROA and TQ measure) and are positively related to ROA and negatively related to TQ among listed companies in Kenya. However, the results indicates that CVD is still a challenge for many companies considering the low level of CVD in Kenyan context. There is little empirical evidence establishing whether low adoption of CVD framework is due to lack of awareness of value relevance of CVD in emerging economies. Study findings are important for policymakers and practitioners to establish the challenges of providing additional information in such contexts. The study recommends more research efforts in bridging the knowledge gap by exploring the causality link between CVD and firm’s value.

Key Terms: Corporate voluntary disclosure, firm value, information asymmetry