The use of annual reports narrative disclosures to predict the firm's financial risk of bankruptcy

Authors

  • Marcelo Sanches Pagliaruss Fundação Instituto Capixaba de Pesquisa em Contabilidade, Economia e Finanças
  • Renato Scotá Fundação Instituto Capixaba de Pesquisa em Contabilidade, Economia e Finanças

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/rco.v3i5.34729

Keywords:

corporate annual reports, content analysis, financial performance, disclosure quality

Abstract

In this work we aimed to analyze the appropriateness of information presented at the narrative sections of corporate annual reports as predictors of a firm's discontinuity. We gathered a sample of corporate annual reports from companies listed at BOVESPA and then we applied two models developed by Smith and Taffler (2000). The sample was composed by failed and successful firms, matched by industry and firm size. For the failed firms, we collected the last annual report before the bankruptcy. Annual reports were content analyzed through a procedure developed by Smith and Taffler (2000). Subsequently, we determined the scores for each firm using Smith and Taffler's (2000) models and analyzed the discriminating power of each model. Results pointed out that Smith and Taffler's (2000) models, even though being developed in a different institutional setting, provided a significant discriminating power between failed and non failed firms. This result suggests that the narrative disclosure in annual reports is an useful source of information related to firms continuity.

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Published

2009-04-01

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Paper

How to Cite

Pagliaruss, M. S., & Scotá, R. (2009). The use of annual reports narrative disclosures to predict the firm’s financial risk of bankruptcy . Revista De Contabilidade E Organizações, 3(5), 3-24. https://doi.org/10.11606/rco.v3i5.34729