The Impact and Determinants of the Qualitative Characteristics on the Usefulness of Financial Reporting: Some Evidence from Selected JSE-Listed Firms

Abstract

The objective of financial reporting is to provide useful information about, the financial position, financial performance and cash-flow position of an entity, to the users of its financial statements. For countries that have adopted the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) has set out the basis on how the financial statements should be prepared and presented. The IASB’s Conceptual Framework provides the principles and guidelines for the developments of the IFRS standards. Through the years, there has been a number of revisions to the conceptual framework that sought to improve the quality of the accounting standards and usefulness of financial reporting. According to the IASB’s Conceptual Framework (2018), for financial statements to be useful, they must possess all the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting. These qualitative characteristics of financial reporting, as outlined in the conceptual framework (2018) are - reliability (faithful representation) and relevance, which are the fundamental qualitative characteristics and the enhancing qualitative characteristics which are - understandability, comparability, verifiability and timeliness. The improvements on the conceptual framework are aimed at improving the usefulness of financial reporting. In South Africa, there are limited studies that have investigated the impact of the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting on the usefulness of financial reporting. The study used data collected from a total of 52 JSE-listed companies operating in the mining, retail and industrial sectors which are listed on the JSE; focusing on the periods 2006, 2012 and 2018 to investigate the impact of the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting on the usefulness of financial reporting. The findings of the study show that all the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting have an impact on the usefulness of financial reporting. Furthermore, the firm size, industry where the firm operated and the leverage of the firm – have an impact on the FEQC of financial reporting.