The Determinants of Non-Financial Reporting in Portuguese Listed Companies

The level of globalization presented in the 21st century generates in the companies an extremely complex and competitive business environment, requiring efforts to improve the information disclosed, to ensure a higher level of transparency and comparability between different countries. In this context, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive 2014/95 / EU as implemented, since 2017, the obligation for public interest companies with more than 500 employees to disclose information with a description of the business model, policies, risks, environmental and social performance, as well as measures for workers, respect for human rights, gender equality and the fight against corruption and bribery. This study assessed the degree of compliance with Decree-Law (DL) No. 89/2017, which transposed that directive to Portugal, by companies listed on Euronext Lisbon, through an analysis of the content of their management reports, accounts and sustainability reports, based on a disclosure index, built on eight mandatory disclosure items. Through a linear regression model, we have also identified the explanatory factors for the disclosure index of each entity. The results allow us to conclude that the degree of compliance with DL 89/2017 is quite high, since the average disclosure index is around 0.875. The least disclosed items were the fight against corruption and bribery attempts, bodies diversity policies and human rights. From the linear regression model, we have concluded that only the size of the company and the type of report are statistically significant factors, explaining 30.40% of the value obtained in the disclosure index.