CORPORATE FINANCIAL REPORTING

Résumé

Corporate financial reporting is a crucial aspect of any business organization that enables investors and stakeholders to get an idea about the financial health of the company. This process involves preparing financial statements, reports, and other disclosures that show how a company has performed over a particular period. As businesses grow in size and complexity, it becomes more challenging to manage corporate finances effectively, making accurate reporting even more critical today than ever before Information, communication and globalization has made the preparation of reports very easy because large volume of transactions need to be processed. Quality corporate reporting is very essential for the growth of an organization and thus development of the economy of any country. Over the years the quality of reporting has received global and heightened concern as a result of the role it plays in allowing users of financial statements make economic decisions which to a very large extent talks about the soundness and healthiness of a business firm or organization. According to research scholars, the concept of corporate reporting has continued to gain grounds in the research field of accounting due to the fact that it significantly alters the way that financial business activities are recorded and communicated (Lui, 2019). The increasing decline in the quality of reporting cut across developed, emerging and developing economies; as Trevor et al. (2017), and Johnstone (2019) asserted that firms in United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK) and France could not fully achieve their targeted goals, and sustain stakeholder loyalty and expectations due to poor quality of presented financial statements. In China and Hong- Kong, Qian and Chu (2020) stated that firms find it difficult to prepare quality reports and efficiently sustain stakeholder needs which as a result have affected the decision of potential and future investors. Likewise, in developing economies like Africa continent, information technology competency has been one of the major challenges encountered by professional firms which could have hindered their growth and efficiency sustainability (Asikhia et al., 2019).