Corporate governance and Risk disclosures practices in the annual reports of Jordanian banks

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing demand for risk disclosures, a demand that has augmented since the 2007/2008 financial crisis (ICAEW 2011). According to Dobler et al. (2011), the lack of clarity in risk disclosures, coupled with a complex business environment, are factors, which have increased the need for research into firms’ disclosures about risk and risk management. Furthermore, business scandals and fraudulent cases (e.g. Enron and Worldcom), and the 2007/2008 credit crisis have shaken investor confidence in the information provided by firms (Rajab and Handley-Schachler 2009), and have called into question firms’ risk exposure and the reliability of financial reports (Oorschot 2009). It has been suggested that an increase in more relevant risk information would reduce investors’ uncertainty (Elshandidy and Neri 2015) and enhance the image and reputation of firms (Louhichi and Zreik 2015).This study intends to examine risk disclosure in annual reports of 15 listed Jordanian banks. Further, this research empirically examines the influence of corporate governance factors on the level of risk disclosure in the annual reports. This study will use mixed method research entailing quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Qualitative methods will employ semi-structured interviews, whilst the quantitative approach is based on content analysis and regression analysis over the period (2007-2016). Content analysis investigates risk disclosure volume, categories, nature, timeframe and news-type.Results showed that there is an increase in the number of total risk disclosures in the annual reports of the Jordanian banks for the period examined, banks in Jordan provided similar levels of risk disclosures in terms of total risk disclosure, risk categories, timeframe, news-type and nature (quantitative vs. qualitative). However, Banks did disclose low level of voluntary risk disclosures, most of the risk information was based on mandatory requirements, such as Basel and IFRS