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The recent economic turmoil in Asia has led to a wider recognition of the importance of corporate transparency and disclosures in financial dealings. The objective of this study is to provide comprehensive and up-to-date evidence of current practice and perceived effectiveness of corporate disclosure of listed companies in an emerging economy-Hong Kong. The study compares the perceptions of chief financial officers (CFOs) and financial analysts about a variety of information flow, disclosure and capital market efficiency issues. It also seeks to determine whether there is a perceived need for increased financial reporting regulations and to what extent this and other alternative means might improve market functioning. While both subject groups believed that a majority of firms only adopt a conservative one-way disclosure strategy and the existence of a communication gap, analysts perceived a much higher need than CFOs for increased financial reporting regulations. Neither group thought that enhancing disclosure requirements alone would suffice to close this gap. Instead, they suggested an improvement in the quality of the communication and disclosure processes through means such as choosing more appropriate communication media, formulating a more proactive disclosure strategy, enhancing investor relationship, and voluntarily reporting more information desired by users.

This paper reports a study of the perceptions and beliefs of external users (investment analysts) of corporate annual reports in one of major international financial centres – Hong Kong. It was found that analyst users (1) view annual reports as having high information value particularly in terms of relevancy, (2) have a relatively high usage of annual reports and read the income statement and balance sheet most often, (3) consider the most important voluntary disclosure items to be discussions of factors affecting future financial results, future prospects of the company, main product market share, acquisition and disposal activities, and China business review, and (4) feel annual reports are somewhat useful, but the amount of information disclosed remains inadequate. Only a small percentage of users felt that the current disclosure requirements are either effective or very effective in serving investors’ needs and that much improvement is still needed. The implications of these findings for management, investors, regulatory bodies and researchers are discussed.

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This study aims to examine a set of institutional isomorphic influences toward integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and the role of board independence in moderating such influences. The results from a cross‐sectional sample of 200 international companies indicated that both coercive (regulatory quality) and normative isomorphism (press freedom, CEO with accounting qualification, Dow Jones Sustainability Index listing, and winning an IR award) exert positive effects on IRQ. Moreover, board independence moderates positively for the effects of mimetic isomorphism (environmental sensitive industry) on IRQ. This study contributes to filling the gap in the literature by offering a multi‐theory approach to analyzing the antecedent of IRQ from the lenses of both institutional and agency theory. It also offers a practical contribution for corporate IR adopters, users, and regulatory authorities to improve corporate reporting. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the moderating role of board independence on IRQ.