eThesis - Kauppakorkeakoulun sähköiset gradut

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Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study was to assess whether Finnish companies reported more and higher-quality information after the adoption of IFRS 8. The study compares companies' reporting under the previous standard IAS 14R to the level of disclosure under IFRS 8. In particular, the items of interest include the number of segments and segment line items, and the level of segment disaggregation and information about cross-segment transfers. In addition, the study examines the differences between early and regular adopters of the standard and investigates whether company size was related to the occurred reporting changes.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

The final sample of the study consists of 110 listed Finnish companies. The segment reporting data for these companies was hand-collected from their annual reports to be able to compare segment reporting under the same financial year. The research questions were examined using statistical analysis with SPSS software. The reporting variables under both standards were compared with non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-ranks test according to the normality test results. The early adoption effect was investigated with Mann-Whitney-U-test and a correlation analysis was conducted to examine the size effect.

RESULTS

The results show that IFRS 8 had little impact on the segment disaggregation or on the number of segment line items. The only significant changes were the substantial decreases in the disclosure levels of assets, liabilities, capital expenditure and equity method income per segment. In addition, the results show that early adopters changed their reporting considerably more than the regular adopters, and that company size did not affect the way the standard was responded to.