Corporate narrative disclosure practices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: a systematic literature review

This study aims to systematically review extant literature on corporate narrative disclosure practices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This study employs a systematic literature review (SLR) to address three main issues: (1) develop insights into how the literature on corporate narrative disclosure is developing in the MENA context; (2) provide a critique of the literature; and (3) suggest avenues for future research. Based on selecting and analysing 60 articles relevant to narrative disclosure literature in MENA region, the results documented the (1) developing of narrative disclosure practices in MENA region since 2015, (2) focus of studies in all regions with more emphasis on Asia, (3) most researched topics, and (4) key determinants and consequences of narrative disclosure are identified. Also, the current review highlights the lack of evidence for (1) some topics, (2) using automated scoring method, and (3) validity/reliability tests. The current review is subject to the limitation of being subjective and based on author’s judgements and interpretation of the findings. Therefore, other researchers may interpret the findings differently. The implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed. Corporate narrative disclosure is a research area that has been receiving increasing attention of international business and yet it is mostly dominated by western contexts. However, the corporate narrative disclosure can have wide implications, and therefore, it is fruitful to investigate narrative reporting in different socio-cultural contexts such as MENA region. Also, employing a SLR methodology results in more reliable findings compared to the traditional literature review.