Detection, Prioritizing and Meta-Analysis of Social Responsibility Disclosure, Professional Ethics and (Reporting) Tone Management Indexes Affecting Financial Reporting Readability

 Financial statements are the most important source of information for legislators, shareholders, analysts and other stakeholders. These reports will be useful to users if they are understandable. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of identifying, prioritizing and meta-analyzing the indicators of disclosure of social responsibility, professional ethics and tone management (reporting tone) affecting the readability of financial reporting.

 The present study is a descriptive-survey research. The statistical population consists of members of certified public accountants in Tehran and Shiraz. Since official statistics of the study population are not available, their number can be assumed to be unlimited. The statistical sample of the present study consists of 260 members of the mentioned statistical community who were selected using the convineince sampling method. The binomial distribution technique and exploratory factor analysis were used to identify indicators affecting the readability of financial reporting, and fuzzy nonlinear preference technique was used to prioritize indicators. Also, the meta-analysis technique was used to investigate the relationship between social responsibility disclosures, professional ethics and tone management (reporting tone) effective on the readability of financial reporting.

Ethical Considerations: 

Honesty and trustworthiness have been observed in all stages of writing the article.

 Consequently the results of fuzzy non linear preferences technique was used to rank the 3 indexes as follows: 1. Skill, competency and professional reporting; 2. Gifts denotation and receiving; 3. Economical, legal and ethical responsibilities commitment against society and employer for professional ethics index and 1. Accrual based earnings management and Fraudulent and real reporting; 2. Tax evasion and financial leverage; 3. Changing and directing financial performance attitudes with complexity and text length for tone management index and 1. Correct and real information presentation, training of society development and contribution; 2. Employment procedures and rights; 3. Economical growth, productivity and withholding tax and performance for social responsibility disclosure index. Also the meta-analysis results suggested that there is a significant relation between social responsibility disclosure, professional ethics and tone management indexes and financial reporting readability.

 Disclosure of social responsibility, professional ethics and tone management (reporting tone) are factors that affect the readability of financial reporting. Emphasis on these three important variables can provide the information needed to make decisions to the organization's stakeholders or market analysts in a more readable and clear way.