Corporate Governance and Disclosure Verifiability as Determinants of Disclosure Tone in the Egyptian Context

This study explores the extent to which Corporate Governance (CG) and disclosure verifiability are represented among the key determinants of disclosure tone in the context of Egyptian companies’ board of directors’ annual reports. The sample includes the Egyptian EGX100 companies, listed from 2013 to 2017. This study uses a panel date with fixed effect regression model to test the main hypotheses. It employs a manual content analysis which focuses on statements as a measurement unit to calculate the disclosure tone. The net positive news is captured by calculating the variance between positive news and negative news. 
The results indicate that the EGX100 companies’ boards of directors’ annual reports disclose more positive than negative news. In addition, all board diversity variables impact on the disclosure tone of such reports. Further, CEO tenure is the only variable related to CEO power that has a significant association with disclosure tone. Similarly, when compared to backward-looking information, the disclosure of forward- looking information is more likely to have a significant relationship with disclosure tone. In addition, with the exception of company size, there is an insignificant association between all control variables and disclosure tone.
Based on the limited literature relating to developing countries’ capital markets, this study contributes to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence of CG’s effect and disclosure verifiability on the disclosure tone in emerging markets.