The Financial Determinants of Integrated Reporting Disclosure by Jordanian Companies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
‘growing audience, the audience’, ‘the primary study sample of the study’ etc. – avoid repetition. International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) – should be subsequently used as an acronym. ‘According to Naynar et al. (2018), the integrated reporting provides insight into the relationship between organizations and stakeholders, through a new approach to disclosure that provides integrated information about the financial and non-financial performance of organizations (Kılıç and Kuzey, 2018).’ – why there are two different sources here? The same here (this passage appears twice in the paper!): ‘Adams (2002) suggested that to improve accountability, extensiveness, quantity, quality, and comprehensiveness of reporting it is important to understand the factors that affect the disclosure practices (Tauringana, 2020).’ ‘It is commonly held in the literature’, ‘It is clear from the literature’ - Try and provide more references to support your ideas that are typically substantiated by only one source. ‘A recent study conducted by’ – unnecessary – you can say it directly. ‘Here, the readers of Friedman's proposals believe that shareholders only have profit attentions, assuming that this is correct.’ – how can you be sure of other persons’ opinions? ‘Ahmed also believes’ – year is missing. Hypotheses must be constructed based on more supporting sources, preferably as recent as possible. ‘Organizational Overview & External Environment, Business model, Strategy allocation, and Performance, while the results were disappointing about Governance and Outlook’ – no need of initial capital letters. Results and Discussion should be distinct sections. The reference list is poorly edited and some sources are incomplete.
The relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental sustainability as regards the financial determinants of integrated reporting disclosure has not been covered, and thus such recent sources should be cited:
Ionescu, L. (2021). “Corporate Environmental Performance, Climate Change Mitigation, and Green Innovation Behavior in Sustainable Finance,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(3): 94–106. doi: 10.22381/emfm16320216.
Crișan-Mitra, C., Stanca, L., Dabija, D.C. 2020. Corporate social performance: an assessment model on an emerging market. Sustainability, 12(10), 4077. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104077
May, A. Y. C., Hao, G. S., and Carter, S. (2021). “Intertwining Corporate Social Responsibility, Employee Green Behavior and Environmental Sustainability: The Mediation Effect of Organizational Trust and Organizational Identity,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(2): 32–61. doi: 10.22381/emfm16220212.
Priem, R. (2021). “An Exploratory Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on the Financial Behavior of Individual Investors,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(3): 9–40. doi: 10.22381/emfm16320211.
Author Response
Reviewer #1
Comment;
‘growing audience, the audience’, ‘the primary study sample of the study’ etc. – avoid repetition.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The author/s have check and correct this issue.
Comment;
International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) – should be subsequently used as an acronym.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. We used IIRC after the first time used as suggested.
Comment;
‘According to Naynar et al. (2018), the integrated reporting provides insight into the relationship between organizations and stakeholders, through a new approach to disclosure that provides integrated information about the financial and non-financial performance of organizations (Kılıç and Kuzey, 2018).’ – why there are two different sources here? The same here (this passage appears twice in the paper!): ‘Adams (2002) suggested that to improve accountability, extensiveness, quantity, quality, and comprehensiveness of reporting it is important to understand the factors that affect the disclosure practices (Tauringana, 2020).’
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected as follows; “According to Naynar et al. (2018) and Kılıç and Kuzey (2018), integrated reporting provides ……”
“Adams (2002) and Tauringana (2020) suggested that to improve…..”
Comment;
‘It is commonly held in the literature’, ‘It is clear from the literature’ –
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected
Try and provide more references to support your ideas that are typically substantiated by only one source.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. More recent references were added to the relevant parts of the manuscript including some of the suggested studies. Example, Modugu (2020), and Masum et al. (2020), (Mkumbuzi, 2016), Vitolla et al., 2019; Ali et al., 2018, ; Fahad and Nidheesh, 2020, Rahman et al., 2019; Scaltrito, 2016; among others.
Comment;
‘A recent study conducted by’ – unnecessary – you can say it directly.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected
‘Here, the readers of Friedman's proposals believe that shareholders only have profit attentions, assuming that this is correct.’ – how can you be sure of other persons’ opinions?
‘Ahmed also believes’ – year is missing.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Such statements were modified or removed as needed.
“..Friedman (1970) believed that corporate social responsibility is towards shareholders only. The company's goal is to maximize shareholder value..”
Hypotheses must be constructed based on more supporting sources, preferably as recent as possible.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. More recent references were added to the relevant parts of the manuscript including some of the suggested studies. For example, the following references were added among others; Modugu (2020), and Masum et al. (2020), Mkumbuzi (2016), Vitolla et al., (2019) Ali et al., (2018), Fahad and Nidheesh (2020).
‘Organizational Overview & External Environment, Business model, Strategy allocation, and Performance, while the results were disappointing about Governance and Outlook’ – no need of initial capital letters.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected
Comment;
Results and Discussion should be distinct sections.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Thank you for your comment. The new section was added for the research discussion (section 5) as suggested.
Comment;
The reference list is poorly edited and some sources are incomplete.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The reference list has been corrected as required.
Comment;
The relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental sustainability as regards the financial determinants of integrated reporting disclosure has not been covered, and thus such recent sources should be cited:
Ionescu, L. (2021). “Corporate Environmental Performance, Climate Change Mitigation, and Green Innovation Behavior in Sustainable Finance,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(3): 94–106. doi: 10.22381/emfm16320216.
Crișan-Mitra, C., Stanca, L., Dabija, D.C. 2020. Corporate social performance: an assessment model on an emerging market. Sustainability, 12(10), 4077. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104077
May, A. Y. C., Hao, G. S., and Carter, S. (2021). “Intertwining Corporate Social Responsibility, Employee Green Behavior and Environmental Sustainability: The Mediation Effect of Organizational Trust and Organizational Identity,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(2): 32–61. doi: 10.22381/emfm16220212.
Priem, R. (2021). “An Exploratory Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on the Financial Behavior of Individual Investors,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 16(3): 9–40. doi: 10.22381/emfm16320211.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. More recent references were added to the relevant parts of the manuscript including some of the suggested studies. For example, the following references were added among others; Modugu (2020), and Masum et al. (2020), Crișan-Mitra et al. 2020, Mkumbuzi (2016), Vitolla et al., (2019) Ali et al., (2018), Fahad and Nidheesh (2020). Unfortunately, we were not able to reach all the suggested sources because they are not open access
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I have read your paper with great interest. The manuscript puts together hypothesis, methods, investigations and interpretations which are appropriate to an original research. The authors addressed the issue of determining the impact of financial leverage, profitability, liquidity ratio, cash holdings and interest coverage ratio upon the quality of integrated reporting by a sample of listed Jordanian companies. This is a current topic of major interest and it is obvious that, under the framework of expanding awareness regarding business sustainability issues in emerging markets, there is an imperious need to highlight country-specific information regarding the financial determinants of corporate disclosures.
I think that the hypothesis development process supported by an ample literature review and the appropriate use of robust mathematical models and statistical tests represent the main strengths of the present paper.
Accordingly, the Research Methods section appears to be of a high quality. However, I have a couple of recommendations in order to improve this part of the paper.
Firstly, I think that some additional information on the sampling procedures would be very helpful for researchers from other parts of the Globe who would be interested in replicating the present study. To be more specific, I suggest authors to provide further details on the approach they employed in order to determine the sample size and to choose the most appropriate sampling method.
Secondly, I believe that the separate presentation of ”Results” and ”Discussion” sections would strongly enhance the clarity of authors’ presentation. The Discussion section should make proper linkages to other upt-to-date studies conducted in the same field.
Last but not least, I consider that the flow of ideas in the manuscript should be improved by correcting a few English grammar errors. There are also some sentences that begin with a lowercase letter while other phrases are so long that they become incomprehensible. For instance, see the following phrase from page 15 of your manuscript: “The results are also useful for regulators of capital markets, policymakers, and government agencies, to think more seriously about motivating Jordanian companies listed on the stock exchange to adopt integrated reporting, with their many benefits from attracting foreign capital and enhancing the state's investment environment, which supports the Jordanian economy, which is still in the growth stage, can be done through the issuance of awareness publications on the importance of integrated reports for managers and shareholders for a greater understanding of the new global reporting practices in preparation for their adoption as mandatory legislation for disclosure, as well as the study is of interest to financial analysts in the capital markets for money and potential investors by providing more accurate financial analyzes and building the most appropriate investment decision based on future information that will be published, as the investors also look to highly transparent companies that provides distinct disclosures in its annual reports”
In this respect, I would advise the authors to find a native English speaker, in order to proofread their manuscript.
Following the operationalization of the above-mentioned improvements, I believe the paper will be ready for publication.
Best Regards!
Comments for author File: Comments.docx
Author Response
Reviewer #2
Comment;
I have read your paper with great interest. The manuscript puts together hypothesis, methods, investigations and interpretations which are appropriate to an original research. The authors addressed the issue of determining the impact of financial leverage, profitability, liquidity ratio, cash holdings and interest coverage ratio upon the quality of integrated reporting by a sample of listed Jordanian companies. This is a current topic of major interest and it is obvious that, under the framework of expanding awareness regarding business sustainability issues in emerging markets, there is an imperious need to highlight country-specific information regarding the financial determinants of corporate disclosures.
I think that the hypothesis development process supported by an ample literature review and the appropriate use of robust mathematical models and statistical tests represent the main strengths of the present paper.
Accordingly, the Research Methods section appears to be of a high quality. However, I have a couple of recommendations in order to improve this part of the paper.
Response;
Thank you.
Comment;
Firstly, I think that some additional information on the sampling procedures would be very helpful for researchers from other parts of the Globe who would be interested in replicating the present study. To be more specific, I suggest authors to provide further details on the approach they employed in order to determine the sample size and to choose the most appropriate sampling method.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. As presented in section 3.1, The initial sample consists of all 62 listed industrial companies on the Amman Stock Exchange during the period from 2014 to 2019. The year 2014 was chosen because it is the year after its issuance of the IIRF by the IIRC in 2013, so the author assumed that the content of companies' annual reports would be more in line with the IIRF guidelines. Furthermore, the end of the period was also set in 2019 because it was the most recent year in which the public's annual reports were available. The industrial sector was chosen as one of the most influential sectors in the economy and development (Li, and Lin, 2017; Al Amosh and Khatib, 2021ab). The focus of this study was on the industrial sector, as it is the sector that has the most impact on society, the environment and the economy (Al-Ghandoor et al., 2008; Qiu et al., 2021). It is also one of the most sectors affecting Jordan's economic growth. 11 companies were excluded because their data were not available over the years of the study. Therefore, the final sample consisted of 51 companies (306 firm-year observations), 82% of the study's initial sample. Further, this study has been conducted by content analysis method and panel data analysis related to IR and the financial indicators were collected from the annual reports of the Jordanian industrial companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange.…….”
Comment;
Secondly, I believe that the separate presentation of ”Results” and ”Discussion” sections would strongly enhance the clarity of authors’ presentation. The Discussion section should make proper linkages to other upt-to-date studies conducted in the same field.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The new section was added for the research discussion (section 5) as suggested.
Comment;
Last but not least, I consider that the flow of ideas in the manuscript should be improved by correcting a few English grammar errors. There are also some sentences that begin with a lowercase letter while other phrases are so long that they become incomprehensible. For instance, see the following phrase from page 15 of your manuscript: “The results are also useful for regulators of capital markets, policymakers, and government agencies, to think more seriously about motivating Jordanian companies listed on the stock exchange to adopt integrated reporting, with their many benefits from attracting foreign capital and enhancing the state's investment environment, which supports the Jordanian economy, which is still in the growth stage, can be done through the issuance of awareness publications on the importance of integrated reports for managers and shareholders for a greater understanding of the new global reporting practices in preparation for their adoption as mandatory legislation for disclosure, as well as the study is of interest to financial analysts in the capital markets for money and potential investors by providing more accurate financial analyzes and building the most appropriate investment decision based on future information that will be published, as the investors also look to highly transparent companies that provides distinct disclosures in its annual reports”
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The manuscript was revised in terms of language and argument flow as suggested
Comment;
In this respect, I would advise the authors to find a native English speaker, in order to proofread their manuscript.
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The manuscript was revised in terms of language and argument flow as suggested
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
An excellent paper, just a few typos:
page 7
'three mains operational' -> 'three main operational'
page 10
'available. further' -> 'available. Further'
page 12
'while the results were disappointing about' This phrase needs improving.
'Where the rate' -> 'where the rate'
'and 589.2%' - >'and a maximum of 589.2%'
page 14
'can be quickly meet' -> 'can quickly meet'
'disclosure. similarly' -> 'disclosure. Similarly'
'attention. in' -> 'attention. In'
page 15
'companies that provides' -> 'companies that provide'
general
Consistency: two types of apostrophe are used
Consistency: P<0.01 and p<0.01 are both used
Author Response
Reviewer #3
Comment;
An excellent paper, just a few typos:
page 7
Response;
Thank you for your comment. The manuscript was revised in terms of language and argument flow as suggested
Comment;
'three mains operational' -> 'three main operational'
page 10
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected as needed
Comment;
'available. further' -> 'available. Further'
page 12
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected as needed
Comment;
'while the results were disappointing about' This phrase needs improving.
'Where the rate' -> 'where the rate'
'and 589.2%' - >'and a maximum of 589.2%'
page 14
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected as needed
Comment;
'can be quickly meet' -> 'can quickly meet'
'disclosure. similarly' -> 'disclosure. Similarly'
'attention. in' -> 'attention. In'
page 15
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Corrected as needed
Comment;
'companies that provides' -> 'companies that provide'
general
Consistency: two types of apostrophe are used
Consistency: P<0.01 and p<0.01 are both used
Response;
Thank you for your comment. Consistency issues were corrected as needed
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revised version can be published.
