Disclosure of COVID-19 Pandemic related Information and Audit Committee Characteristics in the context of Saudi Arabia

Recently, the world has witnessed an unexpected event, namely the COVID-19 pandemic that has created massive changes to many aspects of our daily lives. Firms need to respond proactively to such an event through extending their level of disclosure level of COVID-19 pandemic related information. This study extends the previous studies concerned with the voluntary disclosure through exploring in the context of Saudi Arabia the level of disclosure of COVID -19 related information. Further, the study aims to investigate the expected impact of the Audit Committee (AC) characteristics on the disclosure of COVID-19 pandemic related information in the Saudi Arabian environment. In addition, the study seeks to examine the economic consequences of COVID-19 disclosure. The empirical findings illustrate that the sampled listed Saudi Arabian non-financial firms disclose in their annual reports high levels of COVID-19 pandemic related information. Further, four AC characteristics are associated significantly with the disclosure of such information. These are: namely, AC meetings; AC expertise; AC directorship; and AC remuneration. These indicate the impact of AC effectiveness on the disclosure of COVID-19 pandemic related information. In addition, this study’s findings show that the disclosure of COVID-19 related information has a positive impact on the listed Saudi Arabian non-financial firms’ value. This indicates the existence of economic consequences of their disclosure of such information. Accordingly, this study’s findings contribute to the accounting studies and motivate the need for future research studies to shed light on the determinants of the disclosure of COVID-19 related information.