The relationship between corporate governance and information disclosures: Evidence from the Philippines

This paper aims to investigate the impact of board characteristics and auditors on the disclosure practices of listed companies in the Philippines. This study used a self-constructed research instrument, namely the ASEAN Disclosure Index, to assess the extent of corporate disclosure of 21 the Philippines’ listed companies from 2011-2015, made out of 105 observations. The index covers 212 information items, with three attributes: financial information (76 items), non-financial information (68 items) and strategic information (68 items). An empirical result reports that the result reveals that an audit committee independence is positively significant at 95% level while board size and a number of board meetings held in the year are negatively significant at 95% level. For other variables covering board independence, a number director participation rates, gender diversity, CEO duality, a number of audit committee meetings, a number of audit committee participation rates and quality of external auditors, no significant relationship was found. This study contributes to the literature by offering a new instrument for assessing the extent of corporate disclosure in Southeast Asia region and also providing a novel viewpoint into the relationships between corporate governance mechanisms on information disclosure practices in a context of developing countries like the Philippines. Definitely, the contributed empirical evidence of this study might also help regulators for enhancing the level of corporate disclosure in the Philippines as well as neighboring countries in Southeast Asia region.