An Investigation Into Determinants Of Corporate Disclosure 26 Transparency Of Listed Companies In Zimbabwe During Financial Crisis 2007-2008

Abstract- Zimbabwe once a breadbasket of Southern Africa faced the worst financial crisis in 2008. This study critically examined the degree of corporate disclosure and transparency using annual reports of 2007 and 2008 of listed companies in Zimbabwe and analysed corporate disclosure practices as a function of specific firm characteristics. The analysis used the disclosure and transparency scores extracted from a survey instrument designed to rate disclosure practices of publicly listed companies by using the OECD Corporate Governance Principles as an implicit benchmark. The methodology utilised was mainly on quantitative research. The researcher constructed a corporate disclosure and transparency model. Undue influence on the model parameters was investigated using standardised residuals and Cooks distance measures. Since the diagnostics for the regression model used in this study is a good fit of the observed data the results can be generalized to the wider population of Zimbabwean companies. This study indicates that Zimbabwean publicly listed companies have low levels of corporate disclosure and transparency. Overall the empirical results show that Zimbabwean firms are weakest in the role of stakeholders in corporate governance. Furthermore the results indicate that the variability in corporate disclosure and transparency scores can best be explained in terms of accounting standards and total debt to total assets leverage. The results are broadly consistent with the notion that good corporate governance leads to better corporate disclosure and transparency in less developed markets. The research findings in this study are comparable to similar studies during financial crisis of 1997 that swept through most of East Asia and to World Bank Group-ROSC of 2000.