The level of voluntary disclosure practices among public listed companies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE: Using a modified voluntary disclosure index

This study aims to measure and compare the level of voluntary disclosure practices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE by using a modified voluntary disclosure index. This methodology uses three levels (2, 1, 0) for measuring the quality of voluntary disclosure practices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) instead of the two levels (0, 1) commonly found in the literature. The data were collected from the annual reports for the available financial years 2006 and 2007. The results of measuring voluntary disclosure indicate that the level of voluntary disclosure is low with an average of approximately 36 per cent for the whole sample of companies. The results indicate that voluntary disclosure has been found lacking for most of the items of social and environmental information. In comparing the results of voluntary disclosure between the two countries, it was found that UAE companies have significantly higher voluntary disclosure than Saudi companies, with an average of around 42 per cent for UAE companies and 32 per cent for Saudi companies. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.