Voluntary Disclosure of Non-financial Information, Audit Quality and Their Effects; With Emphasis on Matching Signaling Theory and Legitimacy Theory

One of the requirements of economic growth and development is access to transparent information for all stakeholders. Companies that do not have transparent and credible financial reporting are exposed to credit risk and lose the confidence of shareholders. The quality of disclosure of accounting information is an important factor in determining the audit quality by a large group of public and users of accounting information. However, even with increasing mandatory disclosure requirements, companies continue to provide voluntary information. As such, the motivation for such behavior has attracted a great deal of attention, which has made the subject of voluntary disclosure attractive. In the present study, we attempted by integrating theories of marking and legitimacy in voluntary disclosure of non-financial information, the role of this information and audit quality in a framework and multiple regression models was examined. For this purpose, the data of 102 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the ten-year period from 1388 to 1397 were used. The results showed that voluntary disclosure of non-financial information and audit quality reduce agency costs, risk aversion, cost of equity and cost of debt and enhance stock liquidity and firm market value.