How corporate governance factors impact the propensity to voluntarily disclose leases: A quantitative study in the Swedish setting

Sammanfattning: Starting in 2014, firms reporting in accordance with the K3 accounting framework were required to recognize financial leases on the balance sheet and to disclose their future operating lease expenses. With the help of this sudden implementation, this study investigates how a set of corporate governance factors may have influenced the decision of voluntarily disclosing this information prior to the regulatory change. This is done by comparing data of disclosed operating- and financial leases from 1048 Swedish private firms for the years of 2013 and 2014. One out of the four investigated corporate governance factors present a significant positive effect on the amount of voluntary disclosed financial leases. None of the investigated factors show significant impact on the amount of voluntary disclosure of operating leases. Our study uses this event to contribute to the existing literature on voluntary disclosure of financial items.