Developing a Forward-Looking information (FLI) Disclosure Pattern with a Grounded Theory-Based Approach

The reporting gap between the expectations of investors and business units led to the importance of information disclosure about the future of companies to facilitate the process of decision- making and investment. The purpose of this study is to design a pattern to disclose forward-looking information. The methodology of research is qualitative and a grounded theory is used. For data collection, a review of the literature was performed and finally, results were completed and reinforced by the interview. The participants consist of 30 financial experts and capital market actors who were selected by a theoretical sampling method and a semi-structured interview was performed to achieve theoretical saturation. For the reliability and validity of data, a variety of methods such as data consensus, members’ control, and Strauss acceptance index are used. In the obtained model, the pivotal literature was analyzed in four dimensions namely CEO’s prediction, financial and non-financial information disclosure, future strategies, the information of investors and managers; then the final model was developed and presented regarding the causal conditions, intervening factors, context and as well as the strategies for future information disclosure and its outcomes. Finally, the pattern of forward-looking information disclosure includes 11 main categories and 43 sub-categories.